Something Wicked This Way Comes
by chaiteadreams
Summary: Series rewrite - "It's a yearning," Bonnie says, her voice sounding hollow even to her ears. "A longing so deep it shocks me…but…it's tinged with fear. That makes me think that when I finally do find what I'm looking for or it finds me that-" Rated M for mentions of violence, dark themes and some adult language.
1. And The Fog Rolls In

**TRIGGER WARNING - CONTAINS SOME MENTIONS OF SELF-HARM TO THE END. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK. **

**DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the characters used in this story. They belong to the CW and other parties.**

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><p><strong>AN: Hi everyone, In this story the Salvatores are over 500 hundred years old as in the books but that's where all the similarities between my story and the books start and end. Some characters are a bit OOC and pairings may change on a whim. This is AU and it will not run in the same order as the tv show and will not have the same antagonists either.<strong>

"It's a yearning," Bonnie says, her voice sounding hollow even to her ears. "A longing so deep it shocks me…but…it's tinged with fear. That makes me think that when I finally do find what I'm looking for or it finds me that-"

She stopped and cast weary eyes at the therapist sitting across from her who had been furiously scribbling away. Bonnie wasn't completely sure how to finish that sentence… the emotions inside of her felt like a whirling tornado that wanted to destroy her. A rage that was red hot and all consuming, burning, burning away at her. The only other emotion that rivals it in intensity is a fondness that creates butterflies in the pit of her stomach and steals her breathe and makes her feel like she can conquer the world.

If only thoughts of a longing for someone or something left her confused, exhilarated and scared out of her mind, what would the real thing do?

"Yes," Her therapist prompts, her placating facial expression causing the crow's feet around her eyes to become prominent.

"My time's up," Bonnie says slowly, bringing her eyes to rest on the grandfather clock in the far corner.

"You can certainly welcome to continue talking if you wish,"

"I can't," She says standing "Elena will be here today,"

##

The congregation of faces in the parking lot draws attention, seeing as it's comprised of the IT people. Caroline, head cheerleader, brutally honest socialite and pseudo-event caterer (never doubt her, she can do it all). Matt, Quarterback and resident good guy. Tyler, Jock that – almost every girl wanted and all guys envied – almost. Bonnie, cheerleader and good girl; supportive and modest

There is a few hanger ons. Wanna bes whom Caroline were currently shooting glares at for trying to intrude on a private moment where they welcomed one of their own back into their folds after a summer of pain and realization that her parents were lost to her.

"Elena," Bonnie whispered when her best friend stepped out of her Aunt Jenna's car, clad in jeans, a long sleeved t-shirt and converse on her feet. She was clutching her messenger bag in front her in a way meant to protect.

Elena brushed a piece of her long brown hair behind her ear walked over to them and was enveloped in a mass of warm limbs and whispered "Welcome backs," A few cleansing tears were shed and Caroline even refrained from commenting on Elena's deteriorating fashion sense.

All was good…until the roar of an engine broke up their little gathering; a sports car parked a few spots over and out came a guy with hero hair clad in European leather and what Bonnie was pretty sure Ray Bans shades. She shivered under the late summer sun, there it was again. A bubble of fondness bursting in the pit of her stomach and making her smile like an idiot.

"Woah," Caroline whispered "New? He has to be, we don't have hotties like that in Mystic Falls."

"Hey!" Matt, her boyfriend of 1 and ½ years protests.

"Except you Mattie," Caroline tries to save.

"Hot back," Bonnie says and everyone looks at her, "What? It's basically the only thing we have unobstructed view of from here,"

Elena simply looks on with mild curiosity before turning her attention to Caroline whom has her arm outstretched for her to take.

"Bons?" Caroline says, her other arm outstretched to her. "Come on,"

Bonnie tears her eyes away from Hot Back and takes Caroline's arm. "On we go!"

##

_**New Orleans 1864**_

_The giggles she lets go is like a beacon of light and Stefan follows it, wanting to catch her so she could turn her smile on him and he could feel the warmth of her happiness wash over him. _

"_You're too slow," She teases lightly and she turns the corner, her skirts swishing around her ankles and her voice beckoning to him. _

_He forces his feet to go faster until he can almost touch her, he grabs her by the edge of her dress and they both fall to the ground in a mass of limbs and skirts. She's giggling again which he takes as a sign that she is uninjured. _

"_Mr. Sal-" She stops herself from addressing him formally since they are in private "Stefan," She begins again "You're no good, I'm supposed to be helping mama peel potatoes for the soup but instead I'm here running around with you," _

_Stefan snickered into his hand "You seemed to enjoyed being chased Miss Tyler. Did you not join in this game willingly?"_

_She casts her mock disapproving green eyes on him as he helped her up. "That's not the point, you're older." Stefan wants to smirk and tell her 'You wouldn't believe how much older,' but a pain is spreading in his chest and it hurts to even think about making a joke about his immortality. _

"_Don't leave me alone," He says it flippantly but it hints at the sadness he holds underneath. His double meaning isn't caught by her but her eyes watch him steadily as if she has an inkling._

_It should scare her; the way he looks at her like he knows her inside and out and how he thinks she is both strong yet fragile. But it just seems to make sense to her. She shakes her head and watches him._

"_I have to go before I get yelled at," She says after a while gauging him with her unwavering green eyes. He didn't want or need her sympathy. It wasn't going to help him. "I'll be back later," And she took off, navigating the halls and leaving him up to his own devices._

_He knows he shouldn't be here, with her. Not just because of stupid social norms of this time period but because he will be her doom. She's closer to a witch blood line than she has ever been before; born into the paternal side that holds no power. _

_Soon, he thinks. Soon. _

_His nephew finds him standing in the hallway, watching the area that had just been vacated just minutes before and he inclines his head "Uncle," Stefan says, brushing past him and retreating to his room. _

_**Present**_

Bonnie is doodling on the edges of her notebook, waiting for Mr. Tanner to begin his class. She didn't even notice the class had become quiet until the thud of books hitting the wooden surface of a desk was the only thing she heard.

Her head snapped up, looking for the source of the noise. Her eyes locked with green grey eyes and she sucked in an unnecessary breath. Hot Back was in her history class. She hadn't seen him since this morning when he pulled up in his vintage sports car.

A zing of recognition mixed with the same fluttery nervous feeling she had been plagued with all summer ran through her and she shivered, wondering if he felt it too because he looked at her with an expression of awe and probably fear which had Bonnie frowning, turning away from him and using her curly chocolate locks as a barrier from his probing stares.

Elena watched the exchange with keen interest, the way Stefan's eyes almost never left her not even when he saved her from Mr. Tanner's victimization and Bonnie turned shooting him a thankful smile.

"He so has the hots for you," Was the first thing that came out of her mouth when they exited the classroom, walking across the quad to where they usually sat when the weather was nice. Bonnie frowned not exactly sure what Elena was on about.

"Stefan," Elena said again "You should go for it,"

Bonnie stopped "You sound like Caroline,"

Pause

"Are you okay?" she asked and Elena instantly went into defensive mode, folding her arms over the chest and straightening her spine. Bonnie bit her lip; whenever Elena projected her friends' personalities it always meant that she wasn't holding up well.

Bonnie sighed and put her arms around her friend, and burying her face into the taller girls' thick tresses until Elena relaxed into the hug and reciprocated. "I'm always here for you okay?"

Elena nodded and wiped the few tears that escaped her eyes. She smiled at Bonnie "Let's go,"

"Have you seen him up close and personal?" Was the first thing Caroline asked when they sat in their usual position, Bonnie in the middle, Elena to her left and Caroline to her right.

"Oh yeah," Elena said "We have History with him, he could not take his eyes off Bonnie and he defended her when Mr. Tanner decided to bully her."

Caroline's eyes lit up and Bonnie could almost see the wheels in her head turning.

"I feel like I know him," She started before Caroline was finished scheming. "I kinda felt like I was struck by lightning when I first saw him."

Caroline and Elena became silent, watching her intently before sharing glances with each other. Caroline finally squealed "Love at first sight!?" while Elena chuckled

Bonnie rolled her eyes but didn't refute her friends' claims because the fluttering feeling in her stomach only increased with the thought of his name and his piercing green grey eyes.

"So," She changes the subject somewhat subtly but Caroline and Elena still share a knowing look "I spent the summer with my Grams, she let me sit in a few of her collage classes and she let me in on the family secret, that we're descendants of witches from Salem."

Caroline rolls her eyes, bending her head back to stare at the sky.

"She taught me how to read palms." She continued "And since you're a little Miss Doubty Pants, I'll start with you,"

Caroline reluctantly gave her friend her hand after a mini stare off.

Bonnie centred herself just how her Grams taught her. Caroline's wrist was securely trapped in her left hand while her right hand hovered over the open palm. She waited to feel something, anything.

Caroline scoffed after a while. Well at least she could feel Care's irritation, she thought a bit bitterly and she was about to release her friend's wrist but her head slumped down so her chin touched her chest and then rose back up just as quickly. Her eyes were half lidded and her voice came out raspy as if she were a three pack a day chain smoker. "Care,"

A shiver of coldness ran through Bonnie's hand and she wanted to pull away but one word flashed into her mind, causing her breath to hitch and her throat to close up.

_**DEATH **_.

The five letter word flashed through her head repeatedly making her more than eager to give Caroline her hand back. But she could still feel it, a feeling of death and decay clawing its way up her arm and restricting her throat. A distant scream reverberated in the depths of her mind and she let go abruptly.

Caroline mirrored Elena's frown "You okay there Bon?"

Bonnie let out a shaky breath and ran a hand through her chocolate locks "Yep, peachy."

"Whatever," Caroline said dismissing her friend's freak out but certainly not before giving her another questioning look as if to say; spit it out and then engaging Elena in conversation.

She had walked into a wall. No that wasn't right, there weren't any walls in front of the girls' bathroom. It was a wall of lean muscle, she stumbled back about to fall flat on her ass when hands flashed out and lightly grabbed her hand and her waist, steadying her and in the process pulling her against the wall of lean muscle.

Her right hand, the one that wasn't being held by his is splayed on his chest, in attempt to keep a modicum of space between them. A zing passed through her body so fast she inhaled deeply, her eyes widening and her stomach fluttering so much she thought she's either vomit or pass out.

"Sorry," Bonnie said when he let her go. She rubbed the place where his bare skin met hers, goose bumps had broken out over the surface of her skin and she suddenly felt a not totally unpleasant shiver working its way down her spine.

She looked up and captured his green grey gaze. His eyes were sad and old; like they had seen the turn of the century.

"Your eyes –" Bonnie began without thinking.

"Yes?" He prompted in that intoxicating voice, his eyes dropping to watch the words roll off her tongue.

"They're bottomless…and old," She tilted her head to the side and frowned slightly.

He mirrored her frown, his forehead brooding. "Is that a bad thing?"

She looked at him, her face turning blank. "Yes, it means that you shouldn't be here,"

She looks taken aback at her own proclamation and she opens and closes her mouth a few times, probably searching for words but then she gives up and she flushes. _Stupid_ she chides herself.

"I'm so sorry, I don't know what I'm saying. I'm Bonnie. Bonnie Bennett. Thank you so much for helping me out in History. Tanner always looks for victims." She grimaces for a second before offering him her hand to shake and he takes it. His hands are cold and calloused and he shocks her by raising her hand to his lips and ghosting a kiss to the back of her hand. Her eyes widen as another shock of pleasure zings through her body.

"A pleasure," He lets go of her hand "Stefan Salvatore."

She smiles at him, "Is that Italian?"

He smiles and she smiles back at him thinking that she might like to see it more often.

"Well Stefan, it's a town tradition to have a back to school party every year," She shuffles around to find the flyer Caroline had shoved into her hand after she had kissed her cheek in greeting earlier. "You should come."

He peruses the flyer and Bonnie says on a whim "Here's my number," She reaches out to take the paper back from him and scribble her phone number onto it. Their hands touch and linger when she returns it "Call me if you can make it,"

#

"Whatever this is, I don't want it," Bonnie said storming into her grandmother's study and pacing the length of it twice.

"Girl stop wearing a path into my carpet and greet your grandmother right before I put you over my knee,"

Bonnie sighed and relented, sitting in the chair on her grandmother's left.

"Grams, I did just as you told me with Caroline and I tried to read her palm b- but… I felt something,"

Sheila stopped her writing and peered at Bonnie over her spectacles. She stood when she realised Bonnie was struggling to say more. She knelt in front of her granddaughter and clasped her hands.

"What is it?"

"I ...felt Death," She laughed derisively "I'm really losing it,"

"I think it's all the Sci-fi," Bonnie muttered to herself.

Sheila's face clouded over with worry which had Bonnie gulping, her own worry mounting.

"Grams, I think this is the part where you reassure me that I'm not going crazy,"

"You're not going crazy child," She said then stopped and spoke more to herself "This is happening sooner than I thought,"

"What is Grams?" Bonnie asked slowly, her voice low and slightly raspy.

"What happened today, anything special?" Grams said placing a smile on her face and rubbing circles onto the back of Bonnie's palm.

"Not really… It was basically a normal day but- there was a new guy in town," She said and Sheila leaned forward slightly "Stefan… Salvatore,"

Sheila let go of her breath in defeat, maybe? She furrowed her brows and then absently said "Let's talk later. We'll do dinner tomorrow."

Bonnie frowned but nodded and left her Grams staring out of the window. Her Grams has never been known to have all the screws tightened properly in her head and has been known to go a little heavy on the booze at any given time, so it was easy for Bonnie or anyone really to brush off her weird episodes.

She taught Occult for Christ's sake!

#

Bonnie liked going to the cemetery on days when she felt overwhelmed and burdened. She'd sit at her mother's grave and talk her troubles away. Her mother had died when she was really young, she didn't know her much about Abby Bennett but she missed the symbol that her mother would have represented if she was still present and all the things that they'd never get to do together.

All the missed birthdays and sleepovers and spa days. All the quality time they could have had if she hadn't been driving back to Mystic Falls that day in the pouring rain. She guessed that this was better than having her mother for 16 years and then having her torn away from you like in Elena's case.

Bonnie heaved a sigh and cast a fond smile onto Abby Bennett's flat grave stone, brushing away debris and placing a single white rose on top.

"Hi mom, I'm a junior now!" She placed some fake enthusiasm into her voice and chuckled before sobering "Elena's back and she seems better at least. And there was this new guy, Stefan. Elena and Caroline insists that I get to know him because apparently he was staring at me during History, which is ridiculous right? … But it feels like I know him somehow."

"Grams taught me palm reading which would have made for a fun party trick if it didn't actually work and freak me out. I used it on Caroline and I felt …death."

Bonnie shook her head and bent it so she could look at her hands that were playing with the hem of her skirt. "Again… silly."

A blur of movement flashed in her peripheral and her head snapped up to survey her surroundings. A fog had rolled in all of a sudden and Bonnie stood looking past headstones to see if anyone else had come to pay their respects.

She found no one and she turned, grabbing her messenger bag and slinging it over her shoulder but she stopped her movements when she noticed a single black rose and a black feather in place of the white one she had deposited earlier. Bonnie looked around again; a frown tugging at her lips and a bit of fear creeping up her spine. She picked up the items carefully, not sparing a moment to examine them just heading for the exit as fast as she could.

#

Drying her hair, she padded out of her bathroom; her eyes straying over to the rose and feather that she had haphazardly placed on her desk.

She had examined the feather on her walk home, it was too big to belong to any of the birds she knew around the area and it was midnight black. But if she had to hazard a guess, she'd say it was a crow or a raven. Obviously a mutated one.

The rose on the other hand looked, freshly cut; the thorns still intact. Bonnie threw her towel in her the hamper near to her desk and picked up the rose carefully, lifting it to her nose. She inhaled deeply and sighed, flashes of a dark greenhouse flashed in her mind and she tightened her grip on the flower.

"Ouch," Bonnie said releasing the flower and letting it fall to her desk in order to examine the prick on her finger. She watched the blood swell from the tiny puncture and she pressed it to her mouth; using her tongue to clean the salty- coppery fluid away.

Bonnie picked up the flower once again, reaching over to stick it into her cup of colourful markers and gel pens. It looked strange among all the colour, the blackness of the petals seemingly sucking all the colour into its dark depths.

She reeled and shook her head, now stowing away the feather into the bottom draw of her desk among loose pages of notes and doodles. Her phone buzzed on her nightstand pulling her away from thoughts of oversized birds and a fog suddenly rolling into Mystic Falls.

#

"Hello brother," The voice came from behind him and he didn't turn, just wiped away the sweat on his forehead and rolled his shoulder.

"Hey," The voice grew irritable and Stefan turned slowly to see a smirk finally settling itself onto his older brother's face. "This is no way to greet your favourite brother."

"Only brother," Stefan says in a tone that suggests if they did have another brother; the title of favourite brother and Damon wouldn't even be used in the same sentence.

Damon scowls before it's replaced with a sly smile. "Haven't seen you in what 40 years? What have you been up to?"

There is a pause in which Damon stares at Stefan expectantly and Stefan tries to not let the panic he is in show on his face. Because Damon tends to ruin things, either by mistake or on purpose in his quest for self-destruction. It's beautiful but selfish, and his selfishness is what warps the self-destruction into something ugly and wide spreading; ruining everyone and everything in its reach.

Stefan feigns nonchalance "Oh nothing much, just homesick," He tries not to flinch as the words escape his lips. After he had killed his father and burnt their childhood home down, Stefan had made his need to escape this place and put any reminder of _her _far, farbehind him.

"Oh," Damon says and folds his arms over his chest, the material of the dark t-shirt stretching across his muscles and he lets his head rest against the doorframe. His methane blue eyes are trying to ignite the lies that Stefan has relinquished and that has settled between them making the air heavy with tension. "Well, I'll be around. It's high time we caught up _little brother._"

Stefan grimaced when Damon had left the room. The lies had left a bitter taste in his mouth but he gulped and ignored it. He would protect her from Damon's influence.

He recalled them in the 40's, Damon had found them again or possibly he had been keeping tabs on Stefan in case he found her or more likely, she found him. He had extended his bad influence toward her and she, so innocent and full of wonder at the darkness that he exuded had relented and let him be her death.

Stefan shook off thoughts of the past and reached for the weathered photo he kept in a delicate wooden box with carvings of birds in flight on it. It was a gift from her. He lifted the lid to reveal a portrait of her with long curls, a smirk on her full lips and a glint of mischief in her eyes.

He closed the lid and his eyes. Maybe this time things could be different, he mused and his desperation crept up on him and he wondered how long he could lie to himself.

#

Bonnie let Caroline dress her because she had stood in front of her closet for the last 30 minutes in her bathrobe just staring at the multi-coloured wall of clothes willing something good to just leap out at her.

Caroline waltzed in, looked at her thoughtful face and parted her clothing until she found a summer-esque mid-thigh peach dress, with a thin brown belt under the bosom and she recovered a pair of flat, brown ankle boots from the back of her closet.

Caroline put the dress into Bonnie's hands and sat at her vanity, reapplying her lip gloss. "Hurry, Matt's meeting me there and," She winked at Bonnie in the mirror "You're meeting hot back."

Bonnie flushed at her words but instead of replying; busied herself with getting dressed.

The party is just an excuse to get drunk and scope out the freshman because it is more or less for the high schoolers. A few older and younger people manage to go by unnoticed and Bonnie stands around with a drink in her hand, which she doesn't intend on drinking because of her inability to hold her liquor. Her phone chirps with a text and she looks down. Elena nudges her and then motions to Stefan who is weaving his way through the crowd towards them. Elena gives her a sly smile and a wink and slips past Stefan, whose eyes harden when they see her.

Bonnie frowns at the gesture but it's forgotten when his green eyes meet hers and there is an electric current passing between them. Bonnie feels warm even though the material of her dress is light and airy.

He pins her with a look that has her squirming and shifting her weight from one leg to another. "Hey,"

"Hi," She says and then brings her cup to her lips to sip on the bitter liquid just so she would have something to do with her mouth.

"So this is it huh?" He asks over the increasing volume of the song, "Back to school party," He looks around at the crowd of high schoolers and refrains from frowning, it was pretty shitty.

She shrugs and voices his thoughts "Pretty shitty," She says "But any chance to socialize and get hammered and we'll take it,"

She flushes as he laughs.  
>His laugh is pleasant as well as the accompanying smile he gives her. Bonnie's knees suddenly feels weak and the pounding in her chest becomes harder. She steps back and casually leans against the picnic table, tilting her head and smiling at him.<p>

The innocence is evident on her face and suddenly he wants to run and hide. Run from her and the damage he can cause her. But he's selfish as well and he can blame Damon and call him the bad brother all he wants but he was just as bad probably more so. He wished he was more selfless for her sake but he isn't and he reaches up without thought and lightly brushes his fingertips against her soft cheek.

She's surprized but the jolts of pleasure that run through both of them has her relaxing into his touch. How he missed the feeling of her soft skin against his. She smells like vanilla and wildflowers and it's familiar and warming and he smiles fondly thinking of France in 1640 in a small cottage; his lips pressed against her pulse point on her neck and her hands running through his hair.

_I can resist everything except temptation._ He thinks and he whispers in an affected voice, without thought

"You are so beautiful," Her eyes find his and she pulls away from him. Indicating they take a seat further away from the music on the wooden picnic table and watch the bodies moving on the make shift dance floor in what passed for dancing.

"Where are you from?" She asks, taking another sit of her beer and not looking at him.

"Italy. But I consider Mystic Falls to be my home," He says "I grew up there but I moved away when I was younger and now I'm back to live with my uncle,"

"In the Salvatore Boarding house right?" She asks and then elaborates when he looks at her questioningly "It was run as an inn by a lady named….. Poppy, I believe, when I was younger but no one ever really used it because we have very little tourists so she moved." She shrugged.

Stefan stared at her in silence for a long while and she finally looks at him again. Her eyes are lighter now, the colour of antifreeze and Stefan can hear the pounding of her heart. She clears her throat and glances down at the wrist watch on the inside of her delicate wrist.

"I should probably get going," She says standing, he stands too. "School night and everything,"

He smiles at her and watches her walk away. He thinks that he really is a selfish bastard.

_This time is different._ He chides himself.  
>A dark part of himself that has already given up speaks up <em>You say that every time.<em>

He presses the heel of his hand into his eyes and turns away from the smell of hormones and the increasing smell of teenage sweat and flashes into the dark forest.

#

There was way too much muttering in the hallways, girls where in groups, whispering and looking around for something? Someone?

Bonnie frowned and weaved her ways through the gossiping cliques to her locker. Caroline leaned casually against it and smiled at her.  
>"The whole school has officially heard about him," She frowns "A lot slower than I thought they would actually. Hmm, the degrading efficiency of the gossip network?" She adds on, musing to herself.<p>

Bonnie shrugs.

"Don't shrug at me Miss Lady. They're buzzing about you too. _'Seen on his arm at the back to school party,' 'The startlingly handsome new guy with hero hair goes after the gorgeous cheerleader' _"

Bonnie flinches and looks around the hallways slowly again and she does notice the stares and whispers that break about around her. She rolls her eyes and Caroline changes the subject.

"Practice after school by the way, don't be late." Caroline taps the Morse code for 'love you' on the inside of Bonnie's wrist and she smiles watching her blonde friend weave through the crowd.

They had learnt Morse code when they were 13; a way to communicate without being overhead by their 'rents. It became a necessity after the trio had paid a senior who worked in the movie theatre to buy tickets for them to see an R rated movie and Elena had accidentally spilled the beans by talking too loud and her Grams heard them.

It was their first time seeing a sex scene and Bonnie sat with her hands over her eyes for the rest of the movie. Caroline was gushing after the movie while Elena was as red as a tomato; even the tips of her ears where red. Bonnie hadn't known what she looked like and she wasn't concerned; all she cared about was purging the images out of her mind.

#

He swaggered into the Mystic Grill. His arrogance blocking out the light like blotting paper. It would be easy to say that he looks like a jerk. His methane blue eyes leering at passing women; his presence an offense. But it would depend on which angle you sit in relation to the light.

Here, where Elena was perched, the dying sun had escaped into his presence and you are instead conscious of an alluring darkness and fierce energy; an abandoned prodigality of being that is at once attractive and repulsive.

Particles of darkness like motes of dust on sunlight rush, swirl, eagerly towards him, he draws them in. And flings them out.

He is like a constant wave of the sea. Dangerous but appealing to her at the same time. She suddenly feels like taking a risk and getting a fix of the adrenaline that she knows he can get pumping within her but when he passes by their table, his eyes slide over her with surprize and then a cool distasteful detachment that has her shivering and hiding behind her hair but not before his eyes fixate on the studious looking Bonnie - hunched over her Biology book totally consumed - and narrow at her in interest.

Elena feels a rush of foreign emotion and purses her lips in annoyance and her eyes slide up to Caroline who is watching her with keen interest. She realizes at the moment that this is probably what Caroline felt when they were younger; when there was an unspoken competition between them and an imaginary scoreboard that Elena had always one upped her in. Elena nods at her offering a truce and she does the same in acceptance which all goes unnoticed by Bonnie who is still chewing thoughtfully at the end of her mechanical pencil and tapping her fingers of her left hand on the book in front of her.

"Hottie alert," Caroline says smiling and gestures with her head when Bonnie looks up. They follow her gaze and he is staring unabashedly in their direction. His too blue eyes are trained on Bonnie; his over-confidence startlingly evident in his posture at bar and Bonnie tilts her head precariously and examines him in a clinical way.

He winks at her and she loses her interest in her examination and turns back to her book.

"What's the answer for number 4?"

Caroline's mouth is hanging open in disbelief and Elena's brows are furrowed in confusion. There was a point in their lives when they had wondered if Bonnie was lesbian or asexual because of her limited romantic encounters with the opposite sex but now they wondered if she just didn't get the cues that guys are interested in her.

"He was so checking you out!" Caroline finally says looking from Bonnie to Elena is disbelief. Bonnie frowned and then looked down at the book in front of her and then at both her friends before she got it.

"Oh," Bonnie says and flushes which has Elena watching her fondly. Her innocence was endearing and refreshing to be honest. "Really?"

Elena raises one eyebrow "Bonnie, you're gorgeous."

Bonnie blushes at the compliment and smiles. Elena feels the jealously in the pit of her stomach evaporating at Bonnie's obliviousness to her beauty, she tilts her head to examine her mocha skinned friend. Her green eyes that turned as light as anti-freeze when she was angry, her full lips that she worried when she was nervous and the mass of chocolate curls that framed her heart shaped face. She had been awkward and thin when they were younger but she had filled out nicely now. She was still tiny but now she had curves and an ample bosom and butt. The boys could no longer tease her can call her 'string bean'.

Besides she was so smitten with Stefan already. Elena felt another stab of jealous but brushed it off, Stefan may be eerily handsome – a god in disguise – with hero hair and sports cars but he was way too intense for Elena.

_Not that I had a chance, _She thinks a bit bitterly.

They parted ways after eating and idly chatting; Elena and Caroline splitting a burger and Bonnie nibbling on onion rings.

She went home and stood in the dark foyer, Jenna was probably still at work and Jeremy was having a much harder time than her. He didn't really have a strong support group like she did.

Elena heaved a sigh, she wanted more than anything in the world to hear her mother humming and fumbling about in the kitchen making dinner and her father to be in his study; his door cracked a bit to let us know that no matter how busy he still had time for us. She stood there for a moment too long, waiting. Longing for the sign of normalcy.

A sob escapes her body when it doesn't come and she stumbles up the stairs to her bathroom stripping off her clothes and sitting in the shower; letting the hot water beat harshly against her bare skin. She cries and screams but it does nothing to help relieve the pain.

She reaches blindly, her hand coming in contact with the razor blade she left on the bathroom counter after she shaved her eyebrows. It slides the pad of her thumb and she watches in fascination as a bead of blood swells and falls onto the tiles. Her hand grips the blade and she moves without thought, sliding it against the wrist of her left hand. She sucks in an unsteady breath, watching the red liquid spill on to the bathroom floor.

It feels as if a pressure is being relieved from inside her. Like all her emotions that's threatening to suffocate her is in her blood, the blood that's now slipping out of her body. She moves her hand again and makes 3 more lines across her wrist.

It makes no sense.

Using pain to relieve pain but she thinks it's strangely beautiful.

##

_**Deleted scene: Set two weeks before the end of summer. **_

Bonnie yawned and skipped down the steps of the library; she had stayed too late again but she had to catch up on her required reading for school which started in less than 2 weeks. She sighed.

Darkness had fallen unto Mystic Falls and she stood for a moment in the middle of the sidewalk; watching the deserted streets and the darkness that threatened to consume her.

She closes her eyes and allows the sounds of silence to ring inside her ears. A swooshing sound has her eyes snapping open and she almost stumbles back when she sees someone in the middle of the street, right in front of her.

He's standing under the dim streetlight; the coloured light illuminating dark hair and clothing. He's not looking in her direction, just staring blankly down the road.

She knows she should walk away and not give a second thought to the stranger but she doesn't. Instead she stands there and observes the way he stands still, like a statue and lets the neck of an alcohol bottle hang from between his fingers.

"Hello?" She calls out hesitantly, probably he was lost.

_Or an axe murderer looking for another victim. Nice job Bonnie. _She thinks sarcastically. His eyes find her and then he's taking long strides over to her.

"Bonnie?" he whispers and now she definitely wants to run but her legs have turned to lead and they refuse to move. His blue are the colour of an open flame and suddenly she's on fire but she has no desire to be put out.

"Do I know you?" She asks after glancing nervously over her shoulder. He frowns at her and then sighs.

"Not anymore,"

She frowns at his cryptic words and he steps forward, his warm alcohol laced breath fanning out on her face as he invades her personal bubble. He reaches up top touch her face tenderly and then her blood is rushing in her ears and she can hear nothing besides the erratic thumping of her heart.

He searches her eyes for something, she can't tell what but he suddenly swoops down and captures her lips against his. The kiss is gentle and he doesn't try to stick his tongue down her throat. Bonnie loses count of how many times he presses his lips against her like he's trying to commit her texture and taste to memory. When he finally pulls away; she's mortified that she just let a gorgeous stranger take her first kiss.

Before she has time to run, his pupils dilate and he's taking it all away from her or probably taking it back, wishing the incident away as much as she was. He's erasing the feeling of his cold hands against her face, his lips warm and responsive against hers and the shivers that accompany it and erases how beautiful he looked standing in the middle of the road; lost. He hesitates and then he's gone; into the night.

Bonnie is standing in the middle of the sidewalk, and she blinks, looks around and then shakes her head to clear the cobwebs before walking home to an empty house.

**End AN: Elena is still the doppelgänger btw. It's just things played out a bit differently with Katherine in this story which we will come to in a few chapters. Thank you so much for reading. Please review.**


	2. Brush Me Off and Chain Me Up

_**Scotland 1605**_

_Elizabeth cast her eyes down and gulped, turning to face her hand maiden whom had a mischievous smirk on her lips and her thick dark hair braided in a similar fashion to her mistress._

_"I am to be Queen of Bohemia," She blurted letting the words sink in between them and when the tension was overwhelming she turned to face the girl. Her expression was caught and Elizabeth's heart sank. She walked closer and gently took her face into her hands._

_"Bonnie," Elizabeth said quietly; half wanting Bonnie to fight for her and ask for them to run away and be content with lives as farmers somewhere far away from here and half wanting her to say nothing._

_Bonnie cast her green eyes on her and smiled sadly, "It is your duty, my Lady. To keep peace between the kingdoms."_

_Elizabeth looked away and let a single tear slide down her cheek. "Bonnie?"_

_"Yes my lady," Came the reply_

_"Hold me,"_

_Bonnie swept Elizabeth into her arms, peppering a trail of kisses from her neck up across her jawline. Her fingers dug into the soft skirts of Liz's dress, desperate to keep her closer._

_"Don't leave me Liz," Bonnie whispered "You're mine,"_

_Elizabeth nodded her acquiescence and crushed her pink lips against's Bonnie's soft ones. "Always," She whispered when they pulled back from each other, panting and hair ruffled. "I love you Bonnie. I always will."_

_Bonnie's eyes darkened and she nodded; her eyes brimming up with tears and her chest constricting. "I love you too, Liz."_

_Here they were proclaiming their love for each other even though they could never really have each other._

_#_

_"Your highness, this illicit affair must be stopped," Fredrick said, his head held high and his eyes flashing dangerously. "Your daughter will be a disgrace to you if she refuses to go through with this ma-"_

_James raised his hand to silence Fredrick's rant and steepled his hands together in contemplation. Damon watched with silent interest; more concerned with Bonnie's fate than the king's good family name._

_"What should we do?" The king asked out loud waiting for any of the 3 men in front of them to give input on the matter._

_"My lord, I believe it's best that we ..." Fredrick searched for the correct word for a moment. "Dispose of the handmaiden. Then my lady will have no distractions from her marriage."_

_Damon visibly stiffened and Fredrick shot him a dirty look. Fredrick has been questioning Damon's loyalty since the beginning of his stay and his quick rise to the king's most trusted adviser._

_"Peace between the kingdoms will be achieved." The king mused rubbing the red stubble on his chin._

_"Father, I'm not sure this is the best way to go. Elisabeth will hate you," Prince Henry said, trying to hold his frail looking self up and shoot Fredrick a dark look that just came off as if he was cross eyed._

_"What do you think Damon?" Fredrick asked suddenly, making the King and young prince's eyes turn to him. If Damon sided with Henry; Fredrick would most likely keep trying to cast him in the most villainous role and if he sided with Fredrick; he would have to leave all the comforts he was afforded of in the palace and run to protect Bonnie._

_Damon smiled mechanically, "I think a witch-hunt is in order gentlemen," He forced himself to say smoothly but inside he was livid._

_#_

_They hadn't expected the king with the royal guards on his heels to burst into Elizabeth's chambers. Bonnie and Elizabeth laid with limbs entangled in their undergarments, dizzy after their coupling._

_The king's face had turned red with anger and barked that the guards seize the wench. They pulled Bonnie from the lush sheets, half conflicted with enjoying the view that was afforded from the light material that clung to her skin when she resisted them and stopping Elizabeth from reaching for her lover._

_"Father! You cannot do this. This is cruel and unjust," Elizabeth cried, her voice breaking and her red hair wild "You are no king. You are a tyrant. No! A big child insistent on having your own way and you don't care about anyone else."_

_"How dare you!?" James exclaimed as he backhanded Elizabeth and she fell back onto her vanity._

_"Liz!" Bonnie cried, still fighting against the strong hands restraining her._

_"Obviously this witch has enchanted you. You would have never spoken to me as you did. When she is dead you will be thinking clearly once again. "_

_Elizabeth got to her feet slowly, cradling her swollen cheek and casting a death look unto her father. "I love her father," Her voice was low and threatening. "And if she is to die, I will too."_

_James reacted faster than Elizabeth who attempted to reach the dagger on her bedside table. "Seize her!" He shouted "Put her in the dungeons and make sure she cannot hurt herself."_

_James cast a disdainful look at Bonnie who had let the tears stream down her face unbiddenly and ordered her to be taken away._

_#_

_Damon looked curiously as he stepped over the unconscious bodies of the guards. He would had killed them but it was such a waste; human lives were so fleeting. He both pitied and disdained them._

_"Bonnie," He called to the huddled girl in the corner of the dark, cramped cell. Her head lifted and she looked relieved to see him; getting to her feet and moving to place her hands over his on the bars of the cells._

_"Damon," She sighed; her slip lip warping her Scottish accent and making his name sound funny pushing past her swollen lips. "What are you doing here?"_

_He frowned; an anger swelling up in the pit of his stomach. he clenched his teeth resisting the urge to growl. He reached his hand past the bar to brush her hair back away from her face._

_"Bonnie, do you trust me?" He asked searching her green eyes for something._

_Bonnie nodded without hesitation "Of course Damon, you have always been a good friend to me,"_

_Damon gulped, nodding. "I'm getting you out of here but we must hurry." He said taking the door right off it's hinges_

_"What about my family?" She asked clutching her midsection and looking more lost than he'd ever seen her, even more so than the first time he met her and saved her from being raped when she had gone on an errand for her mistress and he was forced to reveal his true nature to her. She had looked at him then with fire in her eyes more concerned with the life of the peasant instead of her own and the threat he could pose to her. _

_"__My little sister?... What about Elizabeth?"_

_She was scared and lost then but held her ground then; threatening him even though she was so tiny and so human; but she had never seemed weak to him. Her green eyes found his blue ones and he sighed. "Don't you understand Bonnie? Only you matter to me?!" His voice rose slightly and her eyes flashed with anger._

_"And my family and my lover matter to me, Damon," she spat his name and looked ready to storm off when Damon gripped her forearm and pulled her closer to him._

_"If you leave with me Bonnie, they will be safe. Liz will be safe" He said and he saw the fight leave from her eyes; her urge to protect the people she cared about was still so strong. She bit her lip before wincing and nodding._

_#_

_Bonnie sat on the plains above her village, the wind whipping her hair and her eyes hard as she watched the dark outline of the buildings with her weak human sight_

_"I loved her Damon," Bonnie whispered "She was my everything,"_

_Damon sighed and bent his head "We aren't meant to love one person forever, Beautiful."_

_Bonnie tilted her head to look at him. "Do you really believe that?"_

_He nodded "You may not believe it now Bonnie... but you will. You'll fall in love again," He said meaningfully; pinning her with those too blue eyes. _

_Bonnie squirmed before stretching her hand out to him and he took it; sitting beside her and brushing her dark hair away from her face._

_#_

**Present**

Bonnie frowned at the older guy talking to Elena; he was leaning against and old car, with his shades on but Bonnie could tell Elena didn't have his full attention.

"That's Stefan's brother right?" Bonnie asked sitting down on the dirt floor.

"Yep, and he just spells trouble," Caroline muttered and narrowed her eyes in suspicion. She clucked her tongue.

Bonnie chuckled, stretching the muscles in her legs "When have you even been opposed to trouble? Especially when they're that good looking?"

Caroline's head turned to glare at her so fast that her blonde pigtails hit Bonnie in the face. "Hey," She said indignantly "I'm looking out for Elena here. Right now she's vulnerable and him," She indicated to Damon "Tall, dark and handsome, may take advantage of her."

Bonnie raised at eyebrow at the blonde but had to agree with her. Elena had been through something traumatic and it was best to look out for her. She caught Caroline's eyes in a meaningful look and nodded.

Caroline hopped to her feet, Bonnie quick on her heels, "Woohoo Elena," Caroline called as they made their way over to couple. "I could use your help with something here," She said before hauling them off. Bonnie and Damon watched them go.

"Hey," Bonnie began, stretching her hand out towards him, "I'm Bonnie,"

Damon took off his shades and clipped it onto the front of his dark t-shirt; every movement measured. He smiled smugly at her and just looked at her outstretched appendage and Bonnie was forced to drop it. "Damon," He replied a bit dryly but even his bored voice tugged at herand she could feel the butterflies in her stomach flutter their wings. She frowned, trying to get her bearings.

"Look," Bonnie said letting the smile slide off her face and a determined look crossed her face and Damon smiled even more. The fire was still there; the need to protect. "Elena is my best friend and she's been through a lot so if you hurt her,"

Her voice lowered and she stepped closer to him "I promise I'll hurt you,"

She smiled cheerily again and took a safe step back but she was suddenly irritated, normally the talks the girls had with each other's potential love interests always has the guys nervous and ready to reassure them that they had genuine intentions but all Damon did was look like the cat who ate the canary.

"How noble of you to try and protect your friend but I'm not really interested in her as I've been trying to tell her but the girl is persistent."

Bonnie frowned and folded her arms in front of her chest.

"She reminds me way too much of my ex-girlfriend..." He trailed off and turned his head marginally to observe Caroline forcing Elena through the routine. His voice turned bitter "The resemblance is uncanny actually,"

"She's too lanky, too pale and frankly her straight hair makes her look even plainer." Damon finished when he snapped back from memory lane.

Bonnie gasped, ready to stand up for her friend when Stefan's voice startled her, sending a ripple down her spine.

"Damon," Stefan called over her shoulder "What are you doing here?" Stefan narrowed his eyes at Damon and Bonnie could practically see the tension in the air between them. She wanted to excuse herself but the tug she felt towards Stefan and the butterflies Damon had conjured in her stomach cemented her in her tracks.

"I thought I would pick up my baby brother from school today since it seems as if you've been having car trouble lately," He said a little too sweetly too be genuine but Stefan slapped a strained smile on his face and his eyes drifted between Bonnie and Damon and Bonnie's brow furrowed.

"How thoughtful of you but that's not necessary," He waved off Damon's offer "I'm trying out for the football team this evening anyways,"

Bonnie chuckled and both pairs of eye were on her. She squirmed and tried to pass it off as a cough because their eyes were so intense and she gave up the pretense.

She shrugged sheepishly; "Sorry, you just don't seem like the football type. I pegged you more as a sonnet kind of guy,"

Damon broke out into a bout of laughter that had her biting her lip from joining in; it was contagious. Stefan shot Damon a glare as his laughter died down and he wiped a stray tear from the corner of his eyes.

"Oh pretty and funny," Damon commented which had Bonnie blushing.

"Well, I'm a bit of both," Stefan said, ignoring Damon's comments and Bonnie's reaction to it. "Probably, I could show you. We can go out some time,"

Bonnie blushed again but before she could reply, Caroline's voice wafted over to her "Come on Bon-Bon,"

"Umm, sure Stefan. Text me," She said playing with the end of her hair before jogging back over to her friends.

Damon rounded on Stefan and grabbed him by the lapels of his shirt before speeding them out of sight of the cheerleaders and slamming him into the side of the nearest building.

"What are you doing?" Damon almost whispered; his eyes distant and hard.

Stefan pushed Damon off of him and glared at his older brother. "We have a chance to be together Damon,"

Damon's brow furrowed and he looked ready to murder someone "Why do you think this time will be different? You will destroy her,"

"This time will be different! It's all different! This is the first time she's been a witch since..." He gulped.

"You murdered her?" Damon prodded mercilessly, causing Stefan to cringe and run his hand through his perfectly styled hair. "And when will you tell her?"

"When she comes into her powers fully," Stefan whispered turning away from his brother.

"And until then? You spend time with her and what if she falls in love with you before she gets her witchy juju, huh?!"

Stefan turned around, catching Damon by surprise and slamming him so hard into the brick wall so it dented under his weight. "So you can take up the slack and try to worm your way in? I. Love. Her. Damon," He enunciated carefully and his older brother connected him a right hook to the jaw.

"So do I _brother_," Damon spat venomously and Stefan flinched; reminded of the times where her love was not always exclusively his. "This bunch of crap witchy destiny thing is not going to take her away from me again,"

Stefan scoffed but didn't say anything as Damon walked back over to his car.

#

"Sooo... I'm a witch?" Bonnie deadpanned, staring at her Grams over the table. "And we come from a long line of witches going back to the Salem witch trails - no - before the trails," She corrected herself before her Grams could do it and she could almost feel an eye twitch coming on.

Her Grams sipped her tea gracefully and nodded, eyes browsing over the newspaper in front of her.

"Okayyy..." Bonnie said and nodded like it all made sense "So witches exist so I suppose werewolves and vampires and leprechauns and unicorns exist too right?" Yep, her eye twitched as her grandmother set her steady gaze on her.

Sheila narrowed her eyes, "Don't take that tone with me young lady," Bonnie sighed, apologizing for her sarcasm and nibbling on a cookie.  
>"Sorry Grams but I don't get how you'd think our family would be some sort of evil devil worshiping lunatics,"<p>

"Bonnie Sheila Bennett," Grams reprimanded and Bonnie flinched at her tone "Magic is not something to be taken lightly. It's existed before time itself and it's everywhere. Never call your birthright evil; magic is nature and it's pure."

Bonnie suddenly felt angry at her Grams for believing in this nonsense and fairy tales. The same ones that she used to tell Bonnie when she was too young to realize that her Grams had one too many shots after work and was trying to make her believe in something that could get her into the loony bin.

"Okay," She moved to stand, "That's enough. I'm sorry Grams but I think this is enough of your occult for today,"

Bonnie frowned as her Grams just looked at her before pushing her empty teacup closer to and over the edge of the table.

"Grams," She gasped and more to catch the teacup that used to be her mother's before she passed away but it froze in mid air before her hand could even get close to it.

**AN: And that's a wrap. To be continued. Muhahaha and all that. **


	3. Faith

**AN: Hey guys, thank you so much for reading and reviewing. Lapis Love commented on my story and i almost died. Thank you so much for reading and I'm glad you guys like it.**

**This chapter is a bit slow but i promise we'll see more action next chappie. Plus this story is not going to be very long, possibly 20 chapters for the most and i assure you guys i have a plot... it's just well... to connect the dots. **

**Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own the Vampire Diaries. You know the drill. **

_**Faith** _[noun] is a belief that is not based on proof.

But Bonnie had the proof, she had seen the cup levitating in mid air. She had swiped her hands out in front of her, checking for wires or anything that would explain the inexpiable. Her green eyes had met her grandmother's brown ones over the table where she stared with an intensity willing her to take a leap of faith or to rebuke the evidence before her.

She did neither just stared at her Grams, a bit taken aback.

"Bonnie child, I'm asking you to believe what I'm tellin- no - _showing_ you. This isn't some parlor trick, this is real magic,"

Bonnie sat down heavily in her seat and stared blankly at the wall. She wasn't struggling to believe - she was struggling to not believe. Bonnie was struck by how easily her mind had clicked and the word _witch_ had settled into her section labelled _auto biography. _Like if she was waiting for that one word, a missing piece of puzzle that she didn't know she was missing.

She laughed, a hysterical, choked sound and her Grams sat patiently, waiting for her to internalize this revelation. Bonnie had always thought about what it would be like to be 'special' an entity apart from her friends or even this world; for her to have some sort of destiny that brought her greatness. But of course she was young and obsessed with everything from Disney to Marvel.

But here it was, her awaited albeit late wish. She closed her eyes and nodded, slowly and then a bit more fervently; excitement flowing through her veins.

"Where do we start?" She asked her Grams and a small smile played on the older woman's lips.

##

Stefan drummed his hands on the table, staring into the blonde's eyes. She was feisty and reminded him of someone. He cracked a smile and leaned back. Bonnie, Elena and Caroline sat around the table in The Grille; Elena looking mildly distracted and playing with the salt shaker. She smelt different, a muted coppery smell wafted off her skin and she moved her limbs carefully like if it hurt while Bonnie... she seemed different. Refreshed somehow but her attention kept waning between Caroline's interrogation questions, Elena's shiftiness, Stefan's eyes and then refocusing in on herself, a small satisfied smile playing on her full lips.

"Parents?" Caroline prodded curiously.

"They passed away,"

Caroline's eyes got tender and her voice soft "Oh, I'm so sorry," Elena stopped playing with the salt shaker and carefully tucked her hair behind her ear while Bonnie's hand moved to squeeze one of the hands he had rested on the tabletop.

Stefan gave Caroline a tight smile and nodded, it was a long time ago. It wasn't like he still dreamt about his mother's thin frame, racked with coughs as the consumption took her bit by bit or his father's scared face when he had ripped out the man's jugular

Nope. _Not at all_.

##

She's a bit fascinated when he gives her a brief tour of the boarding house. Her face is alight with a kind of child like fascination that makes him smile.

"I always used to think that this place was haunted, that's why Poppy could never attract guests. They could just feel the supernatural menace imprinted on this place."

"Ghosts and the likes," she adds

Stefan pauses "I wouldn't have pegged you for the superstitious type,"

Bonnie shrugs, running her fingers over the old suit of armor standing at attention at the foot of the stairs. "I wouldn't have either," she murmurs under her breath but then to Stefan she says.

"I don't know what I do and don't believe in anymore,"

Stefan was amused now, "They say, 'When you believe in nothing, you'll fall for anything,'"

Her eyes cut to him, "It's not that I don't believe in anything... it's just that of lately... my beliefs have been shaken and I believe in more..."

Bonnie sighed, brushing a strand of curly hair behind her ear. Her core beliefs were shaken and it was scary. Truly, but her new knowledge made her feel ...awakened. A tingly feeling shooting straight through her body that made her feel invincible... it was similar if not lesser to the way she felt around Stefan and strangely enough ,Damon.

She bit her lip at the thought of his name and a subtle shiver through her back made her turn around to a azure gaze. Damon stood at the front door; shaking tendrils of water that clung to the long strands of dark hair making it stick to his forehead and curl wildly before shedded his leather jacket, his eyes never leaving hers. She gulped and it was like the world melted away. She was just the young, inexperienced girl who was melting under the scrutiny of the older, sexy guy.

A hand touched hers and the cool skin startled her out of - whatever that was. Stefan, kept his hand on her forearm, his eyes moving past her to harden at his brother who then swaggered into the den to pour himself a drink.

_How mortifying_, Bonnie thought as Stefan led her into the kitchen, _getting caught making eyes at the brother of the guy you - like?_

She sat at the island, watching Stefan move around preparing food items, he had insisted on cooking for her which she wasn't going to refuse because most of the time her Grams spent in her apartment close to Whitmore so it would be easier for her to get to classes and Bonnie would basically sustain herself on instant noodles and a half burnt chicken fried rice she knew how to make, the recipe for which she had gotten from the back of her rice package and as of late ,the invitations to dinner from her friend's parents had dwindled.

The Forbes had gone through a messy divorce and after Caroline's dad had come out as gay; making family dinners and trying to be home more often was the furthest things from Sheriff Forbes' mind and well Elena didn't know how to cook, her mom was amazing in the kitchen however and Bonnie always had a available seat at their dinner table.

The Gilberts were like her stand in parents, since her mom died and her dad was never around and her Grams worked a lot. Bonnie had a small, sad smile on her lips when she thought of Miranda's pleasant smile when Elena and her came home; giving them a kiss on their temples as was the routine and sitting them down on the islands to ask about their days.

She shook her head and her eyes raised to see Stefan shuffling about, looking for something.

"Top cabinet, second shelf." She said simply and Stefan raised a brow at her but still looked.

"Huh," He said pulling out the wok.

"Was that what you were looking for?" She asked with a curious expression and he nodded.

Damon joined them for dinner which created more tension, it was already difficult with just Stefan and Zach, whom regarded Stefan with a mild kind of disappointment? and Damon? with outright dislike?

It was a bit to wrap her head around, especially since Zach always glanced at Stefan for some type of approval before interacting with Damon and Damon acted nonchalantly about his uncle's attitude as if... the roles were reversed and Zach was the one whom had to prove himself to Damon.

It was confusing to watch them interact and their confusing family dynamics coupled with the fact that Bonnie sat next to Zach, at the head of the table ,across from Damon and next to Stefan. Damon picked at his stir-fry, his eyes intent on the colorful dish until she opened her mouth to speak and then his eyes would be focused on her lips, practically eating the words that fell from her lips and then shooting her a disarming grin.

She almost bit her tongue once - well, more than once.

##

Elena wasn't herself anymore.

She felt like someone had done a 2D painting of the old Elena and she was it and she was about to be washed away. She didn't think anyone noticed as yet but it hurt physically and emotionally to pretend like she was alright. She could hardly get out of bed in the morning without crying and forcing her body through a series of exercises that left her spent.

She didn't blame her aunt for not noticing, she had suddenly inherited two teenagers and trying to keep paying the mortgage for their childhood home was probably more than one person could handle.

She hadn't wanted her friends to find out how much effort it took to smile or move. Elena sat down at her desk, her diary on the table in front of her with a pen marking the page.

She sighed and picked up the pen.

_Dear Diary,_

_I haven't written in a while... i haven't been doing a lot in a while. I can barely get out of bed and it scares me. _

_I think... I'm .. depressed._

_It's not exactly what I've read about 'glorified, heroic battles for sanity,' _

_It's just simply... not wanting to get out of bed because your feet _

_do not believe that they won't shatter upon contact with the floor,_

_depression means _

_That every single bone in your body aches _

_But you have to keep going through the motions because you are not allowed to call in to school depressed._

Elena sat at her desk staring at the words on the paper, it was just a few lines. A few thoughts and she was already tired.

She turned back to stare at her bed; if she chose to lie down now, who knows the next time she would be capable of movement and if she continued through the motions? what then? would she suddenly piece herself back together and everything would be alright if she tried hard enough?

She needed this, she told herself as she stood over the sink, the blood pooling over her red, angry skin and dropping into the white porcelain sink. It was a way to numb herself so she could make it through the day.

Just one more day and then she'd stop and...

_Just one more time_

##


	4. The Beginning and The End

**AN: Wow, another chapter in less than a week. Eeep! Thanks for reading! Please enjoy.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own The Vampire Diaries or any of the characters. They belong to L.J Smith and the CW. **

* * *

><p><em><span><strong>Italy 1491<strong>_

_"I have to go Bonnie," Stefan whispered urgently, his hands cupping her beautiful heart shaped face and even as he notices the scared look in her green eyes and the way her bottom lip trembles; he's struck by how fitting her name is. Bonnie - Beautiful._

_"And I want you to come with me,"_

_Her eyebrows furrow and she's shaking her head, confused "What? Stefan, what's going on?"_

_"Bonnie, please. I'll explain everything to you later. Do you trust me?" He asks barely noticing the eerily silence surrounding them in the thick under brush of the forest. It seems as if nature itself is waiting for her reply._

_"Yes, Stefan. Always." She replies with conviction in her voice and he can't resist placing a chaste kiss on the corner of her full lips_

_"Then come with me my love," He pleads, a bit of anxiety creeping into his voice._

_Stefan lets go of her and steps back and the distance from her leaves him cold, as if she is his own personal warmth and without her he will die. And he assumes; in a way she is and he will. "Please,"_

_"Stefan, you're scaring me," She says and tries not to let her voice break but it wavers slightly and she fists her hands, letting the nails dig into her palms. "Tell me what's going on now,"_

_"It's Katherine, she's been taking too much blood from Damon and my father has been growing suspicious of Damon's sudden weakness," He says "Her sloppiness is because she no longer cares about staying hidden and she even stopped 'compelling' me. She's either going to kill us or my father will kill her first. Either way, I wish not to be here," He rattles off in rapid fire Italian, running his hands through his hair._

_Bonnie's eyes had darken during Stefan's rant and her posture had set in one of determination. "And what of Damon?" She asks and Stefan is suddenly irritated by her feelings towards his older brother._

_"What of him?" Stefan asks and Bonnie narrows her eyes at him._

_"If I am to leave my family and my village to be with you Stefan, I refuse to leave Damon to be killed or worse." She states and Stefan is sure she means it._

_He nods finally; he had never intended to leave Damon here in Italy; probably send him to stay with family in France but he didn't expect Damon to come with them. "We must meet back right here before nightfall, I will bring Damon,"_

_Stefan closed the distance between them; gripping her by her waist and pulling her flush against his chest. He assaulted her mouth and she melted into him; running her hands through her hair and pressing herself closer to him._

##

"What is this?" Zach asks, throwing a newspaper onto the counter top and it slides across the sleek surface to where Stefan is sitting, doing homework for a subject he has taken way too many times. It's nice sometimes, the monotony of school and the feeling of your time slipping away when he puts himself in the role of 'good student'. Although time can't exactly slip away from him, he muses. He'll probably live forever, he's _capable of it_ but the thought saddens him because he has no one to spend it with and he's now incapable of carrying on his lineage. His eye fixes on Zach, his distant great, great etc nephew, who looks angry- no, enraged and then he finally glances down at the newspaper that was slid over to him.

**_Woman hospitalized after animal attack_ **glares back at him in a tacky font and he vaguely wonders if he could compel the editor to start printing the newspaper in weird symbols or possibly Vulcan, (imagine the fuss that will kick up) before he snaps on his hero hair and billowing cape and the genuine worry he feels constantly about Bonnie's safety resurfaces.

"Where was this?" He manages to ask as his forehead crumples into the usual brooding gesture that Damon always chided and teased him for when they were children.

"A few miles outside of town but I won't be able to stop the council from being suspicious if more of these occur. If this was Damon..." His rant trails off when Stefan's eyes slide past him to settle on the smug motherfucker himself. He leaned on the door frame and looked on with a bored expression?

"If it was me what?" Damon prodded, looking smug.

Zach looked pissed but didn't say anything in fear that Damon would lash out. "Go on Zachary, spit it out. What were you about to say?" He swaggered into the room and sized the man up and Stefan stood, which Damon noticed and he stepped back, spreading his hands out in a placating gesture.

"You know Zachary, you were after an ancestor Zachariah, he was pretty presumptuous and a do-gooder like you too. I didn't like him very much and I don't like you either."

"Damon," Stefan warned and Damon sent him a smirk and turned on his heels, losing interest in the topic already,

"I've been on blood bags for the last two weeks by the way,"

Zach sighs when the front door shuts but Stefan can't be bothered with his concern over the council or them being outed as creatures of the night. His mind is reeling and he too dons his jacket and leaves Zach looking dumbfounded.

##

"Just relax and it'll be fine," Sheila tells her granddaughter as she tries to make some objects levitate; she had gotten used to the fire element pretty fast and Sheila had a feeling that Bonnie would be a fire elemental.

"Just remember that you're a part of nature and you can manipulate it to benefit you," Sheila says and the alarm clock Bonnie that Bonnie was focusing on is lifting into the air. "But," She continues realizing that her words can be misconstrued "Nature does not serve you child, you serve it so never think that it will let you violate it quietly,"

Bonnie stares at her Grams and nods before, turning her attention inwards and all of the small objects in the room lift off of their and circle around them, the candles flicking to life and the clocks spinning uncontrollable. Her face lights up and Sheila smiles at her innocence. Her face falls when she realizes that she'll lose it soon.

##

"Elena!" Caroline grabs Elena's forearm and she hisses, pulling the limb back to her and cutting the blonde with a glare.

"Oh my god. I'm so sorry, are you okay?" Caroline asks, reaching for her arm once again to check for injuries but the brunette holds it away, smoothing her expression and giving her a small smile.

"It's fine Care, I think I just pulled something. I'll have the nurse look at it." Caroline opened her mouth to protest but Elena talked over her.

"Honestly, Care. It's nothing, I'll sit out practice for a few days," She sighed, she was too tired to be this defensive so early in the morning, she could practically feel her energy draining and Caroline's bubbliness hurt. "Is there something you wanted?"

"Well, it's just that I'm worried about you," Caroline said, her voice low and cautious. Elena wanted to feel angry at the concern but it made her eyes burn and her throat tightened around any words she could form. "Bonnie wants to do a girls' night at hers tonight, please make it,"

Elena smiled and nodded and was saved from attempting to reply by the bell signalling the start of History class. It was stifling, not their concern but not being able to be honest with them.

"Come on," The blonde says, linking hands with her friends and moving off to their class.

Bonnie and Stefan are already there. Bonnie sitting behind her seat and Stefan sitting a few rows over in the back, staring at Bonnie with a brooding expression.

Bonnie smiles when she sees her and Elena feels the pressure around her chest that Caroline and incited grows heavier and she sits down and tries to concentrate on listening to Tanner speak, but her breathing is labored. She stands, her desk making a scraping sound against the tile and her books fall to the floor with a thud.

She's sweating, her long hair is a bother and she runs her hands through it and stumbles out of the classroom even as Tanner calls her name. She makes it to the girls' bathroom before letting out a choked sob and her body racks with shudders. She sinks to the floor and claws at her chest. She can hardly breathe. The door to the washroom burst open and Bonnie and Caroline rushes in.

"Oh my god," Bonnie says before sinking to her knees and grabbing onto her hand. She's wheezing she knows and she'll still sweating. "Oh god, her hands are freezing. Shit, Care call for an ambulance."

"Elena, babe, stay with us," Bonnie said and Elena's vision wavered "Help is coming." Her voice garbled and darkness consumed her.

##

Elena was fidgety, her body shaking ever so slightly as she sat in History. Bonnie was about to ask her if she was alright when she stood,scraping the desk against the tiles and her books dropped to the floor with a thud that interrupted Tanner's period of time to flaunt his knowledge of this little backwater shit hole.

The brunette's breathing was uneven and she ran a hand through her long locks haphazardly, before stumbling out of the class. Tanner called after her and Bonnie and Caroline snapped out of their daze at her sudden display and stood and ran after her. Bonnie followed her into the girls' toilet. She was on her knees, her body racked with shudders and she was wheezing.

"Oh my god," She sank to her knees grabbing her friends hand, "Oh god, her hands are freezing. Shit, Care call an ambulance," Bonnie turned to the brunette who was sweating buckets and noticed her eyes were heavy and it was difficult for her to even focus.

"Elena, babe, stay with us," Bonnie pleaded "Help is coming," Elena slumped forward and Bonnie shifted her weight so she was cradling her friend.

Caroline, who Bonnie hadn't even realized had left the room returned, panting. "They're here,"

The ride to the Hospital was a blur and the wait was excruciating. Caroline was the one who had stepped up and called Jenna, who was a few towns over and she said she was on her way back and she was demanding information on Elena from the nurses at the nursing station. After Elena had passed out in her arms, Bonnie was kind of in shock, she didn't even notice when Caroline sat next to her and placed a cup of coffee in her hand.

She slipped slowly.

Caroline stood when the doctor who attended to Elena came out and Bonnie followed her lead, the fogginess that was covering her brain dissipated.  
>"Is Elena alright?"<p>

"Are you family?" He asked

"No, we're her friends, all she has is her aunt and she's not going to be here for a while," Caroline said "Please just tell us if she's okay,"

He nodded "She should be fine, it's just anemia. That coupled with some stress is a bit much," Caroline nodded but Bonnie could tell the doctor was holding something back.

"Is there something else?" She asked, her fear coming back full force.

"...We think your friend is suffering from depression,"

"Her parents just died this summer- but wait. How do you know she's depressed, she's not awake is she?"

He sighed, deciding just to rip the band-aid off "Your friend has been self-harming. It looks like if she hasn't been doing it long but hospital policy requires us to keep her overnight on suicide watch and suggest a good rehabilitation program or psychiatrist,"

The doctor waited for that information to sink in before he said something, Bonnie couldn't hear or process and shuffled off, his white lab coat billowing around his frame.

##

Caroline was sobbing; big ugly hiccups and a wad of tissues in her hand to wipe her runny nose.

"God, how c -hic-could we not notice Bon?"

Bonnie wiped at her face, her nose had been running and her eyes burnt but she was too numb to cry; she felt a swell of anger rise up at herself. How did she really not notice that her best friend was hurting so much? Was she so self absorbed?

She turned away from Caroline as if that would stop her from hearing the question and a handkerchief appeared in front of her face. She looked up to meet a familiar face.

"Damon?"

He wasn't looking at her, his face was tilted upwards looking over at the nurses' station.

"Bonnie," He nodded but yet his eyes still didn't meet hers.

She tentatively took the handkerchief from him and dabbed at her eyes "What are you doing here?"

"Visiting," He said simply and watched as Caroline's phone rang and she excused herself.

"Your friend," He began "Is she alright?"

Bonnie was silent for a while. Was she? Physically, probably but not mentally, not emotionally and how long had she been not been. How was she so _broken and hurting _and Bonnie hadn't noticed. What kind of friend was she?

Damon finally looked at her and she felt her bottom lip quiver and her eyes brim with tears and they spilled; hot and fast down her cheeks and she put her face in her hands to cover her waterworks display. She felt the bench shift under a new weight and then a tentative touch of cool skin across her bare shoulders. Damon had put her arm around her shoulders and she leaned into it, turning to take the comfort he was offering and she clung to his shirt and cried until it was wet and clung to his skin. She cried until she just couldn't cry anymore.

Jenna had gotten there as fast as she could, talking to the doctors and shooing Caroline, Bonnie and Jeremy (Who had shown up as soon as he could have gotten out of class) home. Bonnie wanted to stay but the pounding headache that was resonating throughout her skull was hard to ignore and she decided to listen to Jenna's suggestion.

Damon was still there. After she had cried her eyes out, he had waited with her; shedding his jacket and wrapping it around her shoulders when she started shaking and he drove her home.

"Thank you Damon," She said as they sat in his car outside her house. Damon didn't reply, just nodded and she got the feeling he wasn't used to being thanked. She got out the car and walked up to her house. He didn't drive off until she closed the door behind her and only then she realized that she was still wearing his jacket and clutching his monogrammed handkerchief in her hands.

##

"Just get the Bennett girl and we won't have a problem," The voice on the phone said. Clear. Crisp. And accented. Jared paced the room and spoke again.

"But she was with that dark haired vampire, the Salvatore," The voice on the phone made a faint hissing sound which he disregarded. This was fucking irritating, why was he being forced to follow some teenager around "And when she's not with them, they're following her,"

"Think of something before you no longer have a head on your shoulders." They said, with no room for objection.

"...Yes, of course," Jared said and ended the call. He cursed and tossed the glass he was holding against the opposite wall, smashing it into a million pieces.

What made this little bitch so special? Jared paced some more and ran a hand through his blond hair a few times. This man he was working for was a hard ass. He had only been turned for a month or so. Lured in by the promise of immortality, a gaudy ring that helped him walk in the sun and powers beyond his wildest dreams. Well he had gotten what he wanted now he was being yanked around like a fucking lapdog. Jumping when his sire says jump or else his immortal life would be over before he could even experience it.

And this Bennett chick, she was his task. At first it was just to observe her. Frankly she was a normal teenage girl, she had friends, good grades and participated in school activities. She was probably the type with buckets of school spirit. Jared felt the urge to roll his eyes; the only thing that stopped him was when he found out she was more or less an orphan, her parents were gone and she stayed with her grandmother whenever she was there. That and the fact that she had attracted the attention of two brothers. Vampire brothers.

Now his task was to kidnap her. He didn't see why it was necessary. The only thing interesting enough about her was the company she kept. Jared sighed, he had to get the girl or else he wouldn't have a head.

_Well fuck._

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Well now, I'm getting bored with the Elena story arc so I'm basically just getting rid of her. Not as in killing her off obvs but as in sending her to Colorado with Jeremy. Ya, so. Thanks for reading. Reviews are love. <strong>


	5. Mad At Myself

**AN: Hi, everyone who is still reading. This will be my last chapter before shit really hits the fan and we start to see the supernatural creatures descend because if you've all been thinking that this is just another story that revolves around a love triangle you're only partially right because there's something wicked out there and it's much bigger than those three even though they will be a main part in it. ;) **

**Lol, anywho, thanks to all those who've read my one shots and participated in my poll. I'm waiting for my O level results - which I'm pretty nervous for- and other than that my summer is actually going to be pretty boring so i just LOVE LOVE LOVE working on prompts or new chapters to fill the void of being friend-less. jk - (not really) so please continue participating in my poll which is on my profile, I'll be leaving it open for a while so help a girl out. It's to help decide between a short Damon/Elena/Bonnie fic or short Katherine/Bonnie fic**

**BIG thanks to bluemagicrose who betaed this chapter for me and will hopefully continue to beta many more to come. **

**-Nica**

**DISCLAIMER- 5 chapters in and I still don't own anything D: They all belong to the CW and other parties.**

* * *

><p>It takes a lot to bring Caroline's mood down. She's a pretty happy person, throwing herself into work when she's upset, mostly planning fund raisers and pushing her girls on the cheerleading team until it hurts.<p>

She's decided on the former, making good use of the late summer weather and doing a car wash fund raiser for the athletic department. It's been a week since Elena left for Colorado with Jeremy to stay with some close family friends. Elena had refused to see her best friends before her departure and Jenna had assured the girls that she'd come around and write them. Caroline's been writing her every day, guilty that she had completely overlooked her friend's survivor's guilt. Bonnie can't bring herself to pick up a pen. What will she write? _Hey I'm a witch and I've been really caught up with learning my history and I'm sorry for not realizing how self-destructive you actually were and if I had notice sooner I would have _

Her train of thought comes to a rambling stop on its own and her body tenses. What could she have said to her friend or done to make it better? Bonnie wants to think that just her very presence could have helped her friend recover but by how much? She's not naive enough to believe the love she has for her childhood friend could encompass a parent's love and what exactly could she have done for her family that was growing estranged?

An over-worked Jenna, who was trying her hardest to grow up so she could care for two teenagers. Jeremy, who was resorting to drugs. And Elena... the girl who miraculously survived the car crash that killed her parents. Bonnie discards her what ifs and forces herself to not let the scowl that wanted to form take over her neutral expression.

Bonnie leans against a jeep when Tiki comes up to her push broom in hand and a smirk on her lips. "Sweeper duty."

"What?"

"We have to clean the pavement," the smirk still on her lips.

"It's a car wash," Bonnie says irritably. "By definition the pavement's clean."

"But not dry," Tiki continues in a tone that does nothing to quell the anger she feels in her stomach.

"And I'm doing this why?" Bonnie's eyes scans the crowd behind Tiki, looking for Caroline's mop of blonde hair and chipper step so she can tell this bitch to back down.

"Caroline bailed," Tiki answers the question Bonnie's roaming eye asks. "So that leaves me in charge."

Her tone gets on Bonnie's nerves more than she expects and she clenches her jaw and mutters fabulous under her breath as Tiki presses the broom into her grasp and saunters off. Bonnie sighed dejectedly and steps closer to the discarded cloth on the floor and the puddle of water. Steam rises off it in waves and Bonnie watches with fascination, her chin tilting up as she feels it -in her bones- getting hotter and she cranks up the heat irritably.

If Tiki wants the ground dry she'll dry it. A fire starts in front of her feet and her mouth opens in a little gasp. She figures she should douse the flames and walk away but her aggravation at Tiki, at herself, at _Elena_, has her frozen in place, watching as the flames travel across the water-doused surface and engulfs the car across from her.

She barely registers the screams the students let go and scamper away from the vehicle; she's too intrigued in watching the living, writhing flames dance and lick at the horrible paint job on the beat up car.

"Bonnie," a voice says and then cool hands are on the exposed flesh of her shoulders shaking her.

"Bonnie," Stefan says again, turning her around to face him.

"What just happened?"

"You were in some kind of trance," he says, his hands still firmly on her shoulders and she steps back because a strange tingling breaks over her skin beginning from where he touched her and culminating in her lower stomach and she may need to throw up, she thinks belatedly.

She doesn't bother asking if it was her, because she has no doubt that it is. She glances at the car once again before watching Stefan carefully.

"Don't tell anyone," she says lowly, it may have been a threat if she had found her feet.

It comes out more like a plea and she runs off away from the spectacle she has caused.

Stefan folds his arms in front of his chest and watches her go. Her powers were amazing, she was coming into them quickly and they were demanding and playful and it's interesting to watch and it would be even better if he could help her like the first time. He wants to kiss her, to run his hands over her soft skin, he wants to whisper sweet nothings into her ear in Italian...but if he gets too close to her too fast - he snaps off his train of thought and mentally chides himself. If he wants to save her, he can't wallow in guilt, he needs to look out for her and keep his distance.

##

It's not easy to sit by and watch the love of his existence laugh and giggle and flirt with Stefan and before he'd have been happy if it had come to an end but not in this way. He had watched her in the hospital, lip trembling and hands fisted; She was angry, sad, guilty and he couldn't help but step in and offer her some form of comfort. And now that she had run out of tears, she was angry almost all the time. Waking up to objects shattered on the floor and now lighting fire to shitty cars with even shittier paint jobs.

He could tell she was guilty, the way her face would morph into a hard mask as it always did and he could almost see her mentally chiding herself for not doing better. She was a perfectionist through and through but she couldn't control everything and the sooner she figured that out the easier life would get.

He wondered about that. Damon knew he couldn't control everything and yet it got no easier. He knew he couldn't save her, he had tried- more times than he could count but it was no use. It was her burden and he would suffer because of it. He would suffer because he loved her, they were meant to love each other. It was the only thing he was sure of in this life.

Damon stood watching her run off after she set the car on fire and Stefan being herded back to work by a small red-head and he followed her. She was sitting on a bench behind the school, eyes staring at the tree but she wasn't really seeing it.

"Bonnie?" He said tentatively and she started, green eyes turning to him and blinking rapidly.

"Damon? What are you doing here?" Her soft voice sent a tingle through her and he smiled.

"Stefan invited me for the car wash," he said and he's tempted to bring up the incident out there because he knows she has always trusted him no matter which rebirth. He had always been her protector and he always will be but he senses that conversation will go with both of them telling secrets they're not ready to tell each other; he's certainly not ready for her to come to a realization about him just yet.

"Thanks... for the other day," she says softly, looking up from her swinging legs. "I meant to return your jacket and handkerchief but..." she trails off, not sure why she hadn't returned it. The jacket smelt like soap and male and the handkerchief intrigued her, it looked worn and she hadn't known people embroided anymore. It had his initials on it in the corner, a curly D and S. It looked a bit like her handwriting she had mused when she had really examined it, marveling at the careful detail.

"You can keep it," Damon said, sitting down next to her and her stomach did a somersault. Her limbs tingled at his closeness and she looked into his methane blue eyes. He tugged on the material of the jacket and smiled at her. "I have no shortage of leather jackets and the handkerchief... it's special and I daresay you are too. It's yours."

"I can't keep that," she said automatically but his comment made her stomach do a gymnastic routine and blood rushed to her cheeks. What was it with these devastatingly good looking men paying her compliments and taking her out and comforting her?

This was different, Bonnie thought, a guy had never ever caused her to have such a strong reaction as Stefan and Damon had. She's had butterflies before but Stefan and Damon kicked up a hornet's nest in her lower stomach and she felt like she was floating on cloud nine and wanted to throw up her organs at the same time.

"You can," Damon's voice had lowered slightly, giving it a rough edge and it did something to her making her words catch in her throat. The petit girl nodded dumbly as he looked at her expectantly, she had forgotten what they were talking about and all she was thinking about was what he did with his voice and how could she get him to do it again.

"Are you doing okay? How's your friend?" He asks and Bonnie's thoughts snaps back on the right track and she has on a brooding expression he's not exactly comfortable with because it's one he sees on his baby brother's face too often.

Bonnie shrugs and starts talking. "She went to stay with some family friends, they put her in a psychiatric facility for treatment... I've been meaning to write her but I can't bring myself to. I don't know what I'd say. Sorry? I can't think of anything else to say. Probably if I hadn't been so self-absorbed-" she stops, not sure why she's pouring her head out to this dark-haired man but it feels natural and she continues with a slight sake of her head.

"She was in a car accident with her parents and they died while she lived and she took it pretty hard. She went away for a while and when she came back she was better- well, I thought she was better but I guess not. She had survivor's guilt I guess and she was hurting herself and I as her best friend didn't notice. I feel like I failed her. I mean what kind of person am I?"

There's a long pause and she can't look at Damon. She can feel him thinking.

"It's not about you Bonnie,"

"What?"

"All that I've heard since you started talking was me me me."

Bonnie furrows her eyebrows and is about to tell him off but he continues unfazed. "It's not about you, it's about her and she just lost her parents. Write to her. Ask her how's she's going? Just pretend she's on vacation and talk about whatever celebrity crushes you girls like and just make her feel like she has people in her corner. People who'll love her and care about her. Sooner rather than later, the pain of losing people will ease. I'm not saying they'll leave completely but they'll ease bit by bit. It's something she has to face on her own but it would be nice to know she has a lot of people supporting her."

Bonnie wants to be angry at him for assuming that she was just making this all about her but his words struck a chord with her and she's reeling.

She smiles at him and his unbeating heart clenches. "When did you get so wise?"

"Well," he says easily, leaning into her and brushing a stray curl behind her ear. His cool hand lingers on her face and her skin shivers where he touched, tingling pleasantly. "I've been around a long time."

Bonnie laughs, a light pleasant sound that casts her warm, minty breath over his face and then the sound dies in her throat when his eyes flutter close and she seemingly realizes how close they are. She can just lean in a bit further and-

He pulls away from her and her heart sinks. His voice is gentle and alluring, much like Stefan's. Guilt settles on her shoulders and he excuses himself to go check on his car and leaves her to her own devices.

##

"It's not poisonous," her grams says in a tone that makes her feel like she's being ridiculous.

"It's–eww." Grams shoots her a look that makes her pull a face and hang her head. "Please don't make me touch it," she pleads.

"It's easy Bonnie, now stop being so stubborn and hold the damn snake." Bonnie groans but does as instructs though not without theatrics.

"Now focus Bonnie, animals are a part of nature and by that logic we should have some control over them. There's no right way to teach you to get into the mind of an animal...it's just instinctive. Let yourself go and your mind should be pulled into the creature."

Bonnie stared at the snake which coiled itself around her hand, its forked tongue flicking out every now and then to taste the air. They say snakes smell with their tongues. She wonders if the little creature can taste her fear, her disgust, her hesitance. She doesn't exactly want to be inside a reptile but she can say she is curious about how it'd be to smell with her tongue.

Intriguing. She mutters the short spell her grams taught her and she's being drawn in.

Its small dark eyes are pools drawing her in bit by bit until she's lost, trapped in a sea of dark waters. Still. Silent. She feels as if her whole being is being pulled into the creature and then she's seeing from a different perspective. She's lower, the colours around her are dulled and she sees herself; her head angled back and her eyes rolled back to the whites. They move rapidly under the half lids and her breaths are short. Shallow. Wheezing.

She lets go of the snake's mind, catapulting into her own body with a speed that makes her dizzy and she drops the small creature, drawing deep breaths and watching in amazement as the snakes slithers across the dark wood table and her grams scoops it up and gently places it inside the cage beside her.

"Not many people use this spell because if you stay too long in the minds of animals, you think like them. You become them."

"So why are you teaching me this?" Bonnie asks, her eyebrows drawn together and a frown on her lips.

"Have you been reading the book I gave you?" Bonnie nods, she had like clockwork. It was pretty interesting actually, the creatures depicted there that she never would have believed really existed. "Then you'll know that long ago witches use to keep familiars. There are all kinds, thought or spirit familiars which are of course harder to control and very dangerous, animals familiars and a few controversial witches even used to keep... werewolves as familiars." Her grandmother's tone is grave and Bonnie listens closely. It says all of this in her book but it's different listening to her grams. Her voice is rich, inviting, and regal.

"Animal familiars are very good for astral travel. You can travel to where they are and see what they see, hear what they hear, feel what they feel and they're quite good practice for astral projection which is infinitely harder seeing as you won't have a physical form to tether you there and you may not even go where you want to."

Bonnie nods and her grams makes her practice the levitation spells as well as the physical shielding spell and they practice how to direct her psychic powers until she's spent.

##

_**Italy 1481**_

_She was a curious little thing. A Romani girl; she had knocked into him once when he was going to the kitchens and as the silver serving tray had clattered to the ground she had cast her startling green eyes on him and asked in jerky Italian, "do you have eyes my lord?"_

_Damon had been taken aback and nodded dumbly; he had never been spoken to like this by a low born before and certainly not a girl. "Use them," she said reaching her scrawny arms down to pick up the tray. She was tiny and bird-like, probably around Stefan's age. Damon stepped on the tray as she got a grip on it causing it to clatter loudly against the stone floors once again._

_She straightened before Damon spoke again "You can't speak to me like that."_

_"Who says?" She challenged._

_Damon stared at her and she frowned. "Everyone, you're a low born. A gypsy," he sneers the word and a frown tugs on her lips. "You can't speak to a person of noble birth like that."_

_Her eyes are hard and unforgiving as she gathers her worn skirts and does a perfect curtsy. "My apologies my lord," and her apologies make Damon feel even more belittled and he gulps uneasily._

_"What's your name?"_

_"Bonnie, my Lord." He nods at her name and she reaches for the tray again and this time he lets her pick it up. "If you'll excuse me." And she scurries off and Damon stares after her._

_He sees her again as she goes to the kitchens and helps her mother with the cleaning up and every time he'd go to the kitchens to see Marena, his old wet nurse, and sneak pastries when she wasn't looking -the little Romani girl would cast her judgmental green eyes on him and he'd feel like he was dirty. A horrible person of some sort._

_There had been a lot of talk about them. Father's associates had been up in arms about their invasion of their lands and had droned on and on about how unwelcome they were. Damon had listened in from behind the decorative plant that hid the crawlspace that he had used to get in to his father's office. He pulled his limbs into himself tightly and tried not to breathe too loudly. He was pushing 14 now and was growing way too lanky to be using the crawlspace in the manor. His mother had teased him, saying his arms and legs would keep growing until he walked around like a baby deer. Stefan had found that absurdly funny and would smile whenever the boy had to call on the seamstress to tailor new breeches._

_"Stop looking at me like that," Damon had demanded one day when she had come by his chambers to collect his dirty bed linens._

_"Like what?" Bonnie had asked innocently in her choppy Italian and he scowled at her._

_"Like you think I'm just a rude, vicious brat."_

_"You first," She said and at his confused expression she elaborated. "Stop looking at me like you're better than me."_

_Damon stared at her and clenched his jaw. "And I'm not? Better than you?"_

_"No, you're not," she says simply and puts the dirty bed linens in a hand woven hamper at her feet. "Wealth does not make you better than anyone. It just makes you richer."_

_"I'm not a bad person," he insisted and he could almost see the fight leave her._

_"As you say, my Lord." She curtsied and left the room._

_##_

_"I'm not a bad person," he insists as he follows her around watching her perform her duties._

_"I believe you but if you don't mind my lord. I have chamber pots to empty."_

_"You don't seem very convinced," Damon says and watches her curiously. "If it's any consolation I'm sorry for how I treated you the other day. I even bought you this book as an apology."_

_Bonnie takes the book in to her small hands and run her hand over the smooth cover. "This is very nice but I can't accept it my lord."_

_She tries to place the book back into his hands but he refuses it, a hurt look coming over his face. "I cannot read," she amends and he looks confused for a second like he cannot understand that not everyone has a tutor three times a day for unnecessary lessons._

_"I can teach you," he offers and she shakes her head._

_"It's fine," he insists_

_"My Lord-"_

_"Damon,"_

_"Damon," she tests his name out and shakes her head slightly and her brown curls whips around her face and again the jerky movements remind him of a bird and he smiles._

_"Come on little bird, I'm a great teacher and you'll be reading in no time."_

_Bonnie looks surprised at the term of endearment and then bites her lower lip and wrings her tiny, slightly calloused hands and relents. "Fine, I'll let you teach me but only if you stop bothering me while I work. I will get in trouble."_

_Damon smiles and nods before letting the little dark skinned Romani girl go back to her tasks._

_**##**_

_**Present**_

It's not like her to not know what to say to Elena. The tall brunette is her best friend; her sister. She has no shortage of things to talk about but words fail her at the moment. Bonnie clenches the pen in her grasps and hangs her head forward thinking about what Damon said to her.

This was her sister. They have been almost inseparable all their lives. She sighs and starts writing; talking about everything but nothing. She manages to talk about life in Mystic Falls and not mention what happened to her. _What she did to herself. _

Not ask _'why?'_

Bonnie reads the words she's written, once, twice, three times until the words blur and the muscles in her neck hurt. She stands, leaving the letter on the kitchen table and takes her bowl to the sink, washing and drying it. She takes a grape from the fruit bowl and stares at the letter on the desk. When had talking to her sister become so tense?

_Probably when she tried to kill herself?_

Bonnie shakes her head and eyes the trash, tomorrow was garbage day. She takes the bags out the back door and puts it in the dustbins.

She pauses; she feels like someone's watching her. It's a cold feeling that makes the hairs on her body raise and she tries not to shiver at the clammy, uncomfortable feeling.

She tenses her shoulders against her better judgement and she's just about to rush back inside and lock the doors behind her when a hand clamps down painfully on her shoulder and she's about to let out a scream -half in pain and half in terror - when she's turned around so fast she gets whiplash and her back is slammed against the side of the house so hard the breath is effectively knocked out of her.

A cold hand covers her mouth.

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><p><em><strong>AN: Reviews are love<strong>_


	6. Chapter 6

**AN: Hey guys, thanks for still reading. And a special thanks to bluemagicrose who is a heaven sent and leni18 for leaving reviews that make me squeal in delight and encourage me to write; it's so nice to know that my writing is well received.**

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><p>Stefan slips past the security guard at the front desk easily and is able to compel the nurse into giving him the room number of the girl who had been attacked by the animal and he goes to her room, his body tense and hesitant. She's small, like Bonnie, and mousy brown hair is plastered to the clammy, alabaster skin of her forehead and neck and her eyes are closed as she takes slow, shallow breaths.<p>

He had hoped not to disturb the poor girl but he had searched the location where she was found the other day and besides from the faint smell of cops trampling up and down the area looking for clues, he had nothing and it smelt like it was going to rain soon and all the scents would wash away. He couldn't let whoever it is run amok in the little, sleepy town because they could come upon Bonnie and that wouldn't be a good thing. And possibly he can help the tiny girl.

The late afternoon sun comes through the windows, casting sinister shadows on her tiny form and he stares at the bandage on the girl's neck. Stefan sometimes wonders about the marvelous ability of humans to finger some sort of logic or science to explain the supernatural. He shrugs and ignores his train of thought as he shakes the tiny girl awake. She flinches at his cold touch and her eyes fly open to search for the threat.

He can tell she's scared and scared people don't make very accurate sources of information. She stammers out a who are you before her hand inches to the call button for the nurses and he grabs it, capturing it between his two hands and he traps her gaze in his.

"What attacked you?" He asks and her eyes glazes over as she describes a blond haired man named Jared, with fangs. Her voice is high and trembles like a leaf as he makes her recall the attack.

Eva, that's her name, was at a few miles out of town when Jared chatted her up saying he was from Mystic Falls and he happened to mention his dad being a hunter and then having a cabin nearby. They had flirted before he suggested they walk back to his place. He took her to a cozy cabin where they talked, drank and had sex before he drank from her; sinking his fangs into the neck and drinking until she passed out. When she woke up she was here.

When she was finished Stefan sighed and rearranged her memory so she didn't remember seeing the vampire. She was attacked by an animal when she got lost it the woods.

"You'll be fine Eva," he says before letting go of her hand and leaving and she nods, giving him a weak smile.

##

Stefan follows her scent starting from the bar she had told him about, walking through the forest and trying to pick up Eva's faint scent. He curses, he shouldn't have waited so long to speak to her; now the scent is faint, weighed down by the smell of approaching rain. He finds himself circling the same spot three times before a scent, stronger than Eva's and much more recent captures his attention.

He follows it and it's a half mile before he reaches a cabin. It's small and he cases it, watching from afar to see if anyone was there. Stefan hears and sees no movement. He approaches the house wearily; dusk has already fallen in the forest but the darkness does nothing to impair his vision. His eyesight only gets better as he ages and he is 500 plus years old after all.

Stefan tests the door handle gently. Locked. He breaks it off in his hand and pushes the door open, causing the chain that held the door secure to snap easily against his strength and the door makes a loud bang on the wall beside it. It sounds like a gunshot which scares some birds away with loud caws and has him looking over his shoulder fugitively.

When the wildlife settles again and Stefan is satisfied with his quick look around he tests the threshold, relieved when he slips through it easily and moves stealthily inside in the dark. The cabin's small—two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a tiny kitchen and an even tinier living room which is taken up by a big fireplace.

Stefan smells it before he sees it. Rotting flesh. It permeates from the floor boards and Stefan follows it into a bedroom; a boy's room with posters of football players and a hunting rifle propped up against a car shaped bed.

He pries the trap door in the middle of the closet up and finds steps to a basement.

The stomach churning smell of rot causes Stefan to reel, backing away from the dark hole to inhale some fresh air reflexively before he stops breathing altogether. Breathing is just a habit anyhow, he doesn't need to but the sensation is uncomfortable and he doesn't do it often.

He jumps down into the hole and is greeted with a low ceiling, dirt walled room with a desk pushed back against the far wall with a unlit lamp on the small surface. Stefan finds the source of the smell—it's a chubby man, whose face is covered with a plastic bag, undoubtedly what he was killed with. He notices the man's shoulders are pulled back at an unnatural angle and bound behind his back and his abdomen is torn open, spilling guts and vital organs onto the dirt floor.

Flies have begun to gather, laying their young into the rotting crevices and he sees every single maggot diving in and out of the man's flesh and he's repulsed. He turns away, back to the workstation. Ignoring the corpse is easier work because it pales in gruesomeness compared to his crimes as The Ripper.

The workstation is cluttered with folders, a professional camera and the lamp. He flips the first folder open with the tip of his index finger and if his cold, undead skin could grow any colder it would have because these are pictures of her. Of his Bonnie.

Stefan grits his teeth and flips through them, crushing the papers in his hands. When he comes to the last one in the stack he stops and tilts his head. This one was today at the car wash. Bonnie sat on a stone bench with Damon, their faces several inches apart and Damon's eyes closed.

He balls the picture of his brother and Bonnie up when he notices writing on the back of the paper. He reads it slowly.

_L - Get her tonight. It's almost time._

Stefan pushes his body to a dizzying speed. He has to get to Bonnie.

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><p><em><strong>She pauses; she feels like someone's watching her. It's a cold feeling that makes the hair on her body rise and she tries not to shiver at the clammy, uncomfortable feeling.<strong>_

_**She tenses her shoulders against her better judgment and she's just about to rush back inside and lock the doors behind her when a hand clamps down painfully on her shoulder and she's about to let out a scream -half in pain and half in terror - when she's turned around so fast she gets whiplash and her back is slammed against the side of the house so hard the breath is effectively knocked out of her.**_

_**A cold hand covers her mouth.**_

Dark vein wiggles underneath his face and fangs elongate from his mouth and Bonnie's eyes almost bulge out of her head because she knows what he is. She read about them in the thick leather bound book her Grams had dropped into her hands and told her to read. They had a chapter for themselves and Bonnie had run her hands over the old, heavy pages and read it slowly, a bit apprehensive.

As she stares at the blond haired vampire with his blood red sclera, she knows what comes next and for the life of her she can't remember a damn thing from the book. His face returns to normal.

"Relax," he says, his voice low and gruff. He stares straight into her eyes, his pupil dilating. "Stay still and don't scream."

_Compulsion._ He's trying to compel her!

Bonnie's fear climbs up into her throat and makes her struggle against his hold, kicking and scratching. His hold tightens on her shoulder and he mustn't know his strength _OR_ know it all too well because the bones in her shoulder scream in protest. Her fingers tingle, something deep inside her was begging for release and she lets it go.

Jared frowns, she shouldn't be able to resist him. Realization dawns on him at the very moment her skin heats up making her entire body buzz; his skin sizzles and he jumps back from her faster than her eyes can process, his face scowling. He lunges at her again, pushing her so hard the back of her head smacks the concrete wall and she sees stars. He withdraws because her skin is still so hot it can burn the skin off his body; she's a walking inferno.

The blow to the head doesn't stop her, she can't stop. Her life depends on it.

The adrenaline keeps her going and before he's about strike again, she reflexively does as Grams taught her and imagine a blue layer covering her skin; it's a psychic barrier and she pushes herself to pull the barrier off of her skin and project it. It does so with a resounding _snap_. And the next time the blond strikes, he slams against the invisible barrier and Bonnie sways on her feet.

He beats against the barrier more because he can smell her. She's bleeding. All thought of Jared's mission dissipates and all he can think about is pressing the _little witch bitch's_ body so close to him that he breaks all the bones in her body and him nuzzling her neck before he sinks his fangs in roughly, tearing at the skin and her choking on her own blood.

The mental effort used to keep the barrier up is taxing Bonnie and she can already feel a dull ache roar in her head, clashing with the searing pain from the blow to the back of her head. Bonnie stumbles around the side of her house, racing for the back door.

_**Vampires can't come into someone's house without an invitation.**_

She reaches the back door and throws it open and scrambles inside, not bothering to close the door behind her. She reaches for the counter for support and misses it, falling to the floor and then hastily turning around to see if he had followed her. Bonnie doesn't see anything besides the dark sky and a draft blows in. She would have been thankful for it if her body wasn't running at such a high temperature that the sweat evaporated before it could run down her skin.

The doorway remains uninhabited and she gets up slowly, the blood loss making her dizzy. Bonnie touches the back of her head and winces, her fingers come away with thick, dark red blood that makes her knees weak.

It's quiet, too quiet and just as she's about to move into action and run across to the counter - closest to the back door and grab her phone from her charging port when the vampire slams into the invisible barrier denying him entrance to her house. Bonnie's stomach flops and she wants to throw up violently. She doesn't move a muscle as he continues to snarl, pushing and clawing at the barrier; trying to reach her.

She doesn't know what to do. No spells pop to mind and she definitely can't call anyone. Her dad was away on a business trip, her Grams was on campus, she had a lecture late this evening and had just decided to stay on campus instead of making the drive, and she couldn't call Sheriff Forbes. Bonnie had seen the way he moved - or rather not seen him move at all. He was too fast and she didn't want Sheriff Forbes to become his next snack.

"You little witch, let me in!" He snarls and a movement behind him catches Bonnie eye and she gasps as the vampire stills, looking down in disbelief as a pointy end of a wooden stake protrudes from his chest. His skin turns gray and black veins spring up on his skin and he crumples to the floor to leave an angry looking Stefan standing there.

"Stefan," Bonnie cries and she runs to him, stepping over the threshold to wrap her arms around his neck. Logically, she should be asking questions like _'How did you know how to kill him?' 'What are you doing here?'_ but she disregards those questions easily because she trusts Stefan. She had since she met him. When her body makes contact with his she feels the tingling she's always felt when he touches her begin in her limbs and culminate in her lower stomach, it's lesser she supposed. It mixes in with her powerful relief and her adrenaline wearing off, making her head pound painfully and Bonnie sags into him. He shushes her gently which makes her notice the soft whimpering sounds she makes as he holds her and she swallows it thickly.

"I was so scared Stefan. I was so scared," she says before her world is spinning too fast and hard for her to keep up with and she closes her eyes against dark spots appearing across her vision.

The darkness is all she sees as she passes out.

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><p>Bonnie awakes to a dimly lit room and she stretches blindly, her legs feel good against the thick, high thread count sheets and she moves them against the sheets more, enjoying the feel of it against her bare legs. Feels like satin, she thinks belatedly before curling onto her side and trying to go back to sleep. <em>I may just have to trade in my regular cotton sheets for these babies when I get home.<em>

The thought sends Bonnie bolting upright, the memory of last night coming back to her in a flash. She remembered the man who attacked her and Stefan and then nothing. She looks around the room, with its heavy curtains blocking out most of the light, it's antique looking furniture and the huge four poster bed she was in and then her eyes settled on the chair beside the bed where Stefan sat; his form slouched into the chair and his head propped in his hand. Sleeping. He looked so innocent and unguarded, his normally immaculately styled hair was ruffled and she smiled before it slid right off her face.

"Stefan," she says, sliding closer to the edge of the bed and reaching to shake him awake. He flew up, faster than she could process and Bonnie jumped backwards on the bed, hitting her head on the headboard and then letting out a string of curses that made Stefan laugh.

What's so funny? She was supposed to ask irritably when she looked down and noticed she was only wearing a large men's shirt over her underwear. "Who changed me?" She asked then held up a hand when Stefan looked confused and she shook her head.

Bonnie wasn't exactly a prude but she would still prefer to be conscious when she was undressed. She let it go and then focused on the right questions.

"Why am I not in pain? That-he... he almost dislocated my shoulder and I hit my head."

Damon took that opportunity to enter the room, arms folded in front of his chest, muscles straining against the tight fitting t-shirt.

"I fed you my blood," Damon said simply, causing Stefan's jaw to work and his eyes to close.

Bonnie stopped for a second and she blinked, slowly. Once. Twice. Three times before something occurred to her and she gasped.

"You're a..?"

"Vampire," Stefan supplied helpfully, gauging her reaction.

"I was going to say magical healing fairies but that makes more sense," she quipped, nodding to herself.

"You're not scared?" Stefan asked and Damon rolled his eyes. His brother was such an idiot. She had always been attracted and open and trusting with them, _even the first time._ It had only increased with every reincarnation... a way for the curse to ensure their pain.

Bonnie fidgeted, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear finally locking eyes with Damon then Stefan. "Should I be?"

"No, you never have to be afraid of us," Damon said and Bonnie smiled at him.

"Well, I believe you," she frowned for a moment, "I don't know why...but I believe you."

Stefan and Damon locked eyes for a second before simultaneously shaking their heads in the negative. That was all they would tell her for now.

"Besides, I assume you know what I am," she begins jokingly. "I can apparently turn my body temperature up so high it rivals that of the sun."

She's nervous but the information she's been given seems to be processing normally; just like how the word witch had just fit with her. In her mind, the words; vampire, trustworthy, and important seem to fit with Stefan and Damon.

"Did the person who attacked you say anything?" Stefan asked, his forehead brooding and Bonnie sat cross-legged on the ridiculously comfy bed and chipped the pastel green nail polish off of her nails, watching it as it fell onto her bare leg. She frowned to herself as she remembered his face contorting as he attacked the barrier she had hastily thrown up. She doesn't remember what words he might have said because there was the sound of blood rushing in her ears and she could hear her heart, attempting to burst out of her chest.

Bonnie finally shook her head after realizing her heart rate had gone up and she slowly gained control of it. She sighed and tried to tame her hair by running her hand over it in an attempt to smooth it down but she gave up when her finger snagged a knot and she tugged, wincing.

She looked up to meet blue and green eyes trained on her.

"For Christ sake's can you sit down and stop staring? You're making me anxious," Bonnie barked and they heeded immediately, Stefan sitting back into the chair she caught him sleeping in and Damon at the edge of the bed.

"Bonnie," Stefan said, his deep voice demanding her attention. "We think you may be in danger, that guy was working for someone."

Now Bonnie is dizzy, placing her face in her hands and waiting for one of them to continue.

"You're the last of a very long and very old bloodline, there's more power in you than you can guess," Stefan's words make her call to mind the way she felt when she released her powers and it makes her body tingle pleasantly.

Bonnie stands. "I need to get home," she says which shocks both Salvatores.

"What?" Damon asks, his voice conveying the fact that he thought she was utterly ridiculous without really saying it. "You just got attacked there."

"I always have Sunday brunch with Caroline and my dad will be home Tuesday. I can't just put my life on hold because someone wants to kill me or whatever."

Her tone is flippant but even as she says the words ice water fills her veins and wonders when she became this okay with her life being in danger. She had never been in this situation before where she was being targeted. Her life had never been in danger to this extent; it had never been in danger at all actually.

"Why are you guys even in this town? And how old are you?" She asks suddenly.

Stefan responds "You know how I'm really good at history? It's probably because we've lived through most of it."

Bonnie's mouth falls open and she opens and closes it a few times before she shakes her head, clearing up the fog that disrupts her thoughts and makes her want to shut down. "Okay this is enough. I'm still trying to process the fact that you guys are ancient and that someone may be after me. I just need to get home,"

He voice sounds weird. "Can someone just take me home?"

"I'll take you," Damon volunteers and Bonnie lets her bare feet touch the cold ground.

"Thank you."

##

How am I supposed to react to this? What am I supposed to do? Bonnie thinks to herself as she sits in Damon's car, he's playing some rock that she doesn't recognize while she stares out of her passenger side window.

I'm supposed to go into shock right? But then again, it's not the first time Bonnie's core beliefs have been turned upside down and everything's different. But this time, everything is still the same. Bonnie still gets butterflies when she's close to either of the Salvatore brothers and she still feels safe with them.

Bonnie tries to imagine Stefan or Damon with eyes like that; dark sclera and wriggling veins, the image produces no fear, just curiosity. When they stop in front of her house, Damon shutting off the engine, Bonnie turns to face him.

"Can I see... your eyes..." she asks gently watching as Damon sighs and turns his body to face her. He takes a moment to examine her, but she doesn't flinch under his stare. He shows her what she wants to see and she doesn't recoil and he doesn't expect her to.

Sometimes her reaction varies, from outright disbelief to calm acceptance, much like today. But no matter what Bonnie is never afraid of him. He's afraid of her. _Afraid for her_.

Her small hands reach up and touch his face gently, tracing the veins around his eyes and then she takes an interest in his fangs which dimple his bottom lip.

Her touch is soft, and fleeting and she runs her hand over Damon's top lips and the movement makes him shiver and his fangs sink into his bottom lip a bit too hard and he whimpers at the taste of his own blood. It does nothing for him, doesn't sate his eternal hunger (he's tried) or increase it but the way the blood captures Bonnie's gaze makes him feel helpless and oh so vulnerable. She watches in fascination as blood pools where he bit down and spills. His tongue dart out quickly and he licks away the trail it would leave. Her green orbs move back up to his icy blue stare and she leans in.

He jerks away from her and chuckles. "You wouldn't want to keep your little blonde friend waiting, would you?"

Bonnie's crestfallen look at his sudden withdrawal is quickly replaced and she gets out of the car, bending down to tell Damon good-bye. He waits till she's safe and sound in her house. The sound of the deadbolt sliding home is his cue to beat it. But he doesn't go far. She might be too strong willed to willingly play the damsel in distress role but this could be her last time.

_Her last rebirth._

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><p>Bonnie comes armed with coffee and blueberry muffins (Caroline's favorite). It was still relatively early and without the peace offering of sorts Caroline would kill her for showing up at her house, around 7:15AM on a Sunday to interrupt her beauty sleep.<p>

They had a standing reservation at a little cafe downtown for half past 10 but Bonnie couldn't wait. After Damon dropped her home, she had stared at the closed back door and the letter on the table, wondering why it looked so normal. Like nothing bad had happened there just last night. She didn't sleep, she took a shower and armed herself with coffee and muffins. She was going to tell Caroline, about her witch status. She wasn't sure how much of it she was going to reveal. She just knew she needed her best friend.

Bonnie opened the front door of the Forbes' residence with the spare key she kept on her bunch along with her house keys. She made her way to Care's room, flouncing on the bed next to the comforter covered form. She enjoys the softness against her face for a moment before setting down her bribes and pulling the comforter from off her best friend's face.

"Rise and shine sleepy head!" She bellows with more enthusiasm than she actually has and as she expects Caroline curses her out, twisting and turnings - exaggerated groans included - before finally, getting a whiff of coffee and taking the bait.

"What's going on?" Caroline said once she's devoured her first blueberry muffin and taken a few sips out of her coffee. She's watching Bonnie with narrow eyes, she was always good at reading people.

"I have something to show you," Bonnie says reaching for one of the pillows on the bed. It's not hard to muster excitement now because the thought of sharing this major part of her with one of her best friends is awesome. (It's a bonus that Care never ever bought into the whole witch thing. Now Bonnie can knock her socks off.)

"If it's the fact that feather pillows actually have feathers inside, I know already. Matty dropped the bomb on me," Caroline jokes and Bonnie quirks an eyebrow but doesn't reply. She raises her hand over the pile of feathers and one, two then three feathers float under her hand. She makes them circle each other and looks up at Caroline who now has her hand over her mouth, her blue eyes wide.

"Everything Grams has ever told me is true. I'm a witch."

Bonnie raises the whole pile of feathers into the air, willing it to swirls around them in dizzying patterns.

"Amazing," Caroline utters and she stands on her bed to touch the floating feathers, which tickle her hand and skirt around it, moving on the air.

"Wow," she says looking at Bonnie. "that's...wow,"

"We may need to get you a thesaurus," Bonnie jokes and Caroline joins her in her sitting position, hugging the witch and they laugh; Caroline still not making use of her full vocabulary and Bonnie answering unasked but needed questions.

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><p><strong>AN2: <strong>With that said, I wasn't completely satisfied with this chapter and I had to cut out a flashback and Bonnie's reaction is a bit out there but I'd chalk that up to momentary shock and the fact that she can't help but trust them (Don't worry she'll realize all her questions weren't answered soon enough.) The next chapter may be a full on flashback or Bonnie finally asking some<em> real<em> questions. Reviews are love.****


	7. Not Quite Chapter 7

**_I have nothing written for this story. It completely fell off my radar so in order to apologize for not having a proper chapter, I'm including my outtakes for this story. I had originally planned to demonize Damon a lot and not just let him sit back and watch things unfurl. He was supposed to be angry at himself, at Stefan, at Bonnie, at life; because he was cheated. I guess he still is angry but he's a lot better at keeping things at bay? Anyways, while I work on the real update for chapter 7, enjoy...whatever this is._**

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><p>Her mouth is dry and her palms sweaty; she wipes them mindlessly on her floral skirt. An anger is building in the pit of her stomach and she makes an involuntary sound of protest in the back of her throat.<br>_The dead has risen._

Or never actually been dead...  
>Bonnie doesn't know if she wants to run into her arms or slap the serene smile off her face so she settles for neither; turning on her heels and walking out the door. It's cruel: tricking someone into grief and it's been played on her.<p>

She walks until her feet ache. Seeing but not seeing. She doesn't stop until the loud honk of a horn scares her out of her own mind.  
>Bonnie swipes viciously at the tears of anger that escape her eyes with shakey hands before turning to cast her gaze on the 1961 Camaro in blue. Damon's eyes are trained on her, the methane blue unwavering.<br>She gets in without invitation because she is shaking, not because of the cold but because of a flurry of emotions that has her doesn't meet his gaze again. She just stares at her hands; clenching and unclenching her fists and willing them to stop shaking.  
>Damon sighs and drives seemingly with no destination in mind. He is refraining from being his usual asshole self and demanding the truth out of her. But, she senses, that will not last long from the way he begins insistently tapping on the steering wheel.<br>After a while she inhales and he looks at her full lips that she is worrying and she falters; she won't be able to forget this moment where he turns from into her enemy and someone she despises into her confidante because he always listens to her intently; his attention rapt on her as if she has all the secrets of the universe. Ready to divulge at any moment. He will not let this go. She worries that this will mean something to her ,and she fears, everything to him.  
>Right now she has no universal secrets to share just her own petty problems but she needs an ear and he is willing to lend it.<br>She is selfish, she should hate him for what he did to Elena but right now she is broken and he is willing to help her pick up the pieces.

* * *

><p>Bonnie talks for hours, until she's horse and no more words come to mind, it's dark by that time and he drives her to the Gilbert Residence; he had flinched when she made the request and his face hardened.<br>The Gilbert residence is shrouded in darkness, a fact that Bonnie does not realize until she retrieves the key from the plant pot that she and Elena had tried growing poenies in and failed miserably because they didn't have the green thumb. She smiles at the memory of two young girls, their brown hair pulled high as they packed dirt into the pot.  
>Her smile falters when she walks into a wall of darkness. It feels more menacing than usual and Bonnie flinches.<br>"Elena?" She calls out as she moves to turn on the lights and dispell the shadows.  
>"Jenna?" She calls after failing to get a reply.<br>"Jeremy?"  
>Bonnie walks over to the step so she can listen for a reply but she hears running water.<br>"Elena?" She calls again, climbing the stairs with fevor. Water is flooding the upstairs hall and Bonnie's heart almost stops beating.  
>"Elena!" She screams and pushes at the locked door willing it to open. A burst of energy eminates from her and the door pushes back, breaking the lock and splintering the wood. Bonnie rushes in and a unmoving Elena sits in the tub, long gashes donning both hands. The blood drips from the wounds tainting the water pink and making her nauseous. She ignores it and rushes over to her friend, turning off the water and pressing her fingers against the brunette's neck desperate for any sign that she's okay.<br>There is a flutter under her index finger and she screams in relief. Tears are running down her face and ugly sobs escaping her lips. She pulls out the phone and calls for help, barely hearing her own horse voice as she relayed the address to the EMT. When she's finished she lets her phone fall carelessly from her hand and she clutches her friend's naked body against her.

* * *

><p>Her head is groggy from the sedative they had to give her to stop her from bawling her lungs off and clawing and scratching at the doctors so she could stay at her best friend's side.<br>Her tears, she suspected are not only for the brunette lying in the OR getting stitches for the cuts across the forearms but for her mother, who faked her own death, her Grams who she hasn't seen in months and for herself; the girl who is forever damned to die for love.  
>Bonnie is sitting in the waiting room, her aching head cradled in her hands and a guard standing a few feet away watching her carefully in case she tries to attack the hospital staff in order to find Elena again.<br>"Bonnie," A voice has her looking up and for all she has been avoiding him for a week and a half; she's relieved to see him. She's into his arms before she realises she told herself to move.  
>"Stefan," She breathes and with that breath comes her trembling. She hadn't realized she was cold but it only seems logical because she still dons the damp articles of clothing.<br>Stefan's strong arms wrap tighter around her and she presses her face into his chest.  
>They pull away when the racking in her body is too much and her teeth are cleched too hard.<br>"You have to help her Stefan, please."  
>Stefan opens his mouth and closes it firmly. "Please Stefan, she's my sister. I can't lose her,"<br>With that final plea Stefan feels his resolve drop.  
>He could never deny her anything.<p>

* * *

><p>His fangs descend and he tears into his wrist, it's messy and tactless but they're pressed for time. He's mesmerized for a moment by the red pooling on his skin and then his presses the offending appendage to the still slightly blue lips of the pale brunette who looks even paler against the white hospital sheets.<br>She drinks without cohersion and he feels Bonnie release a sigh.  
>He watches for several more moments as her skin regains some colour and he can hear her pulse become stronger. One of her hands twitches, the one secured to the bed as standard regulation with all attempted suicide cases.<br>He takes his hand away from the suction of her mouth and watches the red of his blood stain her lips. Bonnie steps forward; her eyes tired but relieved and he watches as she wipes the blood away from Elena's lips and presses a kiss to her friend's forehead.  
>"Come on," He encourages and she allows her self to led away from her friend. He can feel all the tension leave her body from where his hand is placed on her shoulder. She pulls his jacket closer around her body and she stops, she places her hands on his shoulder and tiptoes to press a chaste kiss to his lips.<p>

* * *

><p>He watches her sleep. He's a starving man being presented an all you can eat buffet, if he allows the goddess in front of him to be described in such crass terms. He takes all of her in, her caramel skin that glowed in the streak of moonlight that shone through the window.<br>She had been too exhausted to go home and face Abby so she had come to the Salvatore Boarding house to seek reprieve.  
>It was horrible to trick someone into grieving; it was a pain he had felt before. The first time Bonnie had died and he had spent years distraught and ripping before he turned it off. She was his reasons to turn it back on; his second chance.<br>He had lost count of how many times he had met her through the years; 10? 20? She was both his salvation and his damnation and he could honestly say the only thing he regretted about their time together was that it wasn't longer.  
>Sometimes he got years, sometimes mere months.<p>

He wants more, he always has.


	8. Chapter 7

She stares at the place where her head had smacked into the wall; the blood had been washed away by the rain and Bonnie's a bit thankful for that. A shiver still runs down her spine when she thinks about the blond vampire attacking her. She's scared but not as scared as she should be, if anything she feels angriermore angry than ever. How dare someone just waltz into her life and pull her sense of security from out under her? How dare they attack her at her home, where she's supposed to feel safe? Where she and her father rests their heads at night?

Bonnie stares at the spot intensely for a while longer before she goes inside, flipping open the grimore she had borrowed from Gram's rather impressive library. She finds a spell that repels anyone with malicious intentions and she reads it carefully a few times. It's simple enough.

The petite witch gathers all the ingredients and stands over the grimore, lighting the bundle of sage and pouring all her desire to protect herself and her family into the Latin. She can feel when it's done;, she opens her eyes and she can see the blue barrier surrounding her windows and doors. There's a feeling of self- satisfaction that settles over her and she smiles, giving her handy WORK a once over.

Caroline's notification tone comes on and Bonnie grabs her stuff, stowing her grimore away in the living room bookshelf and running out the house into the crisp morning air to meet her best friend. They had an early morning cheer practice because the pep rally was this afternoon and Caroline wanted to get the routine perfect.

"You look like crap," Caroline says once Bonnie buckles up.

Bonnie scowls, "Wow, thanks Care. No need to beat around the bushes. Tell me how you really feel."

Caroline shrugs, "Sorry. Have you been sleeping okay?" She glances over to the witch. "The bags under your eyes are basically designer."

Bonnie rolls said eyes and nibbles on her bottom lip. She hadn't told Caroline anything other than witches exists, she wasn't sure if she could shatter Caroline's reality like that.

_I've had a nightmare or two._ "I'm fine,"

Caroline rolled the vehicle to a halt at the intersection, it's still early enough that the air is crisp and metallic, the smells she always associates with cold. The blonde twists her body in her seat as far as her seat belt and steering wheel allows and searches her best friend's face for a few unnerving moments before exhaling loudly.

"Don't do that. Don't say you're fine when you're not. I understand that you may not want to talk about whatever it is. Probably it's something witchy and I may not understand but don't shut me out please. You can't do that to me-"

She pauses and shakes her head, "You can't do that to yourself,"

Bonnie reaches over to grasp her pale, well-manicured hand and she blinks past the tears stinging her eyes. Her heart was heavy at Caroline's words but there were somethings she had to protect.

"Okay," Bonnie nods, squeezing her friend's hand gently.

"Okay."

**_New York City-1920_**

_The dirty underground New York blood scene is not where he pictured he'd be on a Wednesday night, clad in his finest and methane blue eyes scanning the crowd of woman and men for one girl in particular. The dark haired Salavatore had gotten a tip that Bonnie had been spotted here._

_He finds her in the company of Eugene Haymond, some boring newbie vamp that was apparently a big wig down here._

_Bonnie looks disinterested, sipping on her drink and eyes glazing over whenever Eugene whispers something to her. Her voice is robotic when she laughs on cue to his jokes. Eugene notices his stares and excuses himself from his present company, parting the crowd to get over to him._

_"Mr. Salvatore, Are you enjoying yourself?" Eugene asks but Damon ignores him instead pinning Bonnie, who had trailed over here with him, under his gaze._

_The silence is thick and it seems as if he carves out a separate world for them, blocking out the annoying sounds of Vampires feeding on their dates and the slow sensual music being played._

_"You like this one?" The stocky man says pulling the tiny,brown skinned woman into him and gripping her chin with one hand. Damon scowls at the man as Bonnie skirts away from his touch._

_"Is she bitten?" Damon asks and Eugene looks smug._

_"No, just compelled. I've been saving her for a special occasion.,"_

_Damon gives Bonnie a hard look, this time she's wearing her long hair coiffed and styled like all the other girls, as iswas the rage, and her lips are painted an alluring red. The flapper dress she's wearing is flattering and Damon can see every curve. She smooth her gloved hands over her hips in a nervous movement under his intense scrutiny._

_Damon inclines his head at the beauty and she steps forward into the alcove, filled with smoke and the hard stench of whiskey and sweat. She sits next to him and he blows a ring of smoke into her face._

_She coughs and fans the smoke away from her face but not before shooting him a dirty look. He laughs, a contagious sound that has Bonnie stifling a smile of her own. Damon brushes a lock of her hair back and her eyes grow dark at the contact of his bare skin against hers._

_He pulls her in to capture her full lips with his own and Damon can hear Eugene sputtering and helpless next to them._

_"She's mine now," He says gruffly but she has always been his, from the beginning - and he has always and will always be hers - even if she doesn't know it._

_"Wh-?"_

_"Leave Eugene, you're a few centuries too late to be able to stop me from taking her.,"_

_Damon pushes past Eugene roughly, leading Bonnieher by the hand, not letting go until they emerge into the crisp night air._

_He turns on her, backing her up into a parked vehicle._

_"How did you get here?"_

_After a beat, she replies, "I was kidnapped, one day coming back from WORK, some really strong guy kidnapped me a few blocks from my apartment.,"_

_"Do you have any family?" He asks this as a precaution, it wouldn't matter either way. Eugene was the kind of man who wouldn't overlook this slight against him. He'd try to kill Damon and Bonnie and anyone connected with Bonnie._

_"No. What are you going to do with me?" She asks in a small voice and it's not distrust he hears in her voice. No, she's never not trusted him but there's a cautious undertone._

_"I'm going to take care of you," he says, brushing a hand over her cheekbones and tipping her chin up to capture her soft lips once again. It's an electric feeling and all the nerves in Damon's body are on fire._

_Present_

Bonnie stretches with the other girls, the stands are filling up and she can feel the electricity in the air. It's normally an exhilarating feeling but she feels as if something's wrong. There's an uncomfortable churning in her stomach and to top it off she hasn't seen Stefan today. He sent a text saying '_Won't be seeing you today. I've got a few errands to run._' It only adds to her unease. Was he looking into who sent that vampire after her? It could be dangerous. The thought sends a shiver down her spine and she shakes her head and focuses on keeping her legs straight as she pulls her upper body to nest between her spread legs, anchored by her hands.

When she returns to standing position she feels eyes on her and turns around to see Damon, smiling at her and chewing popcorn leisurely as he casually leans against the bleachers. theThe green eyed witch has a sneaking suspicion that he was staring at her ass.

"Aren't you too old to be at high school pep rallies?"

"1) Ouch, you make me sound decrepit - and before you say it," hHe adds quickly before she can bring up the little fact that he is immortal and have been living for way too long, "I'm not that old and 2) I couldn't just miss you in action could I?"

" You don't have to babysit me you know Damon. I'm not afraid,"_ Liar_ she chides herself.

Anger stirs in Damon's gut hard and fast and he's tempted to show Bonnie how vulnerable she really is and how afraid she should really be but she steps back from the fire she sees in his eyes and Caroline's calling her back out on the field.

It shakes Bonnie; the anger she sees in his eyes and she operates on autopilot, her smile wide and her body moving fluidly in the booty shaking, hands flailing routine that Caroline had coordinated.

When she's done, she doesn't see Damon lurking anymore which makes her even more anxious than seeing him there; his intense eyes full of anger.

Despite her feeling of unease earlier, the pep rally goes off without a hitch and Bonnie stays behind to help clean up. She's one of the last to leave and the darkness of the parking lot unnerves her. She has her keys in her hand but she can't help glancing around to see if there was anyone around.

When she's a few metres from her car, a spark of fear strikes her and she makes a run for ither car. Her hands shake violently when she tries to open her door and curses when her keys fall to the ground.

When she stands, a shape beside her own is reflected in her car's window and she twirls around to face her attacker. He pushes her against her door and covers her mouth with his cold hand.

_Damon._

It takes a while for her racing heart to settle in her chest and she struggles against his vise grip but he refuses to let her go, a quiet rage in his eyes.

"Do you know what happens when a witch dies violently?" Bonnie stills, shaking her head slightly.

"Nature itself rebels, causing earthquakes, tsunamis, thunderstorms, floods. Any sort of natural disaster actually but powerful witches like you don't just cause a natural disaster. No. You leave a scar of the earth itself like a magical nuclear bomb that causes the earth to become barren and affects every single supernatural being in the vicinity. But you Bonnie...

You're special. If you die, you'll affect every single supernatural being on earth. No one knows if it'll be in a good way or bad way but we can't risk finding out. Don't be so damn blasé with your life.," His eyes become tender and his grip loosens enough to let Bonnie worm out and he allows her to push him away and slap him with all the strength she has in her body.

He stumbles back and cradles his face looking at the hurt look on her face and the tears pooling in her emerald orbs.

"Why are you doing this to me Damon?!" She screams, pressing her hand against her chest hopefully to slow her rampant heart. It feels as if it'll burst out of her chest. Her breathing is a bit unstable but she manages to push words out.

"I-I'm s-scared out of my mind but p-p-p-putting on a brave face is all that I have Damon... _It's all that I have or I'll break_."

"Bonnie," that tender look still on his handsome face. She sinks to her knees next to her car, her hands tangled in her hair and her eyes staring blankly at her thighs. "It's alright. I've got you.," He cautiously puts his arms around her shoulders and cradles her to him.

Damon clenches his eyes shut as she fists her hands in his t-shirt and presses her face into the material. He isn't sure why he's pushing her so hard but he's scared.

_Always scared._


End file.
